We now come to my final post in this short series involving my look at the book, Can We Trust the Bible on the Historical Jesus?, that covers a debate on that topic by New Testament scholars Bart Ehrman and Craig Evans.
A Note About John’s Gospel
Before I move onto both scholars’ concluding statements and a few questions-and-answers, though, I want to touch upon something from my previous post regarding Ehrman bringing up the point that the Gospel of John is vastly different than the Synoptics. As Evans says in his response, this isn’t news. Christians for the past 2,000 years have noticed that the Gospel of John is very different. Numerous early Church Fathers, from Clement of Alexandria, Ireneaus, and Origen, as well as the Muratorian Canon, touch upon this.
Clement of Alexandria, writing around AD 180, tells us that after the Synoptics had been written and passed around to the early Church communities during the second half of the first century, that John of Ephesus, who was one of the original disciples, approved of those Gospels and acknowledged them to be truthful. At the same time, though, there were other events during Jesus’ ministry they didn’t cover. So, he decided to write his own Gospel to cover the things the other Gospels hadn’t touched upon. That is why John’s Gospel is so different—it was intended to be different.
There is also scholarly discussion regarding the identity of John. Was he the actual John, one of the Twelve, or was he another disciple of Jesus named John who wasn’t one of the Twelve? Richard Bauckham, in his book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, discusses the possibility that this John wasn’t John the Apostle but was a disciple of Jesus who had been a priest in Jerusalem. Therefore, since he was a resident of Jerusalem, that would explain why the bulk of John’s Gospel takes place in and around Jerusalem, as opposed to Galilee, which is the location of a good portion of the Synoptics.
Still, that doesn’t explain some of the more glaring differences in tone and the presentation of Jesus. As Ehrman says, in the Synoptics, Jesus isn’t going around telling everyone, “Hey, I and the Father are one!” In addition (and Ehrman doesn’t bring this up), in John’s Gospel, Jesus’ opponents are “the Jews,” whereas in the Synoptics, things tend to be much more specific—Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Herodians. So, how can we account for such a stark difference in how Jesus presents himself in John’s Gospel? Scholars have various opinions. Here’s mine.
We need to really consider just how significant it is that John’s Gospel was written around AD 90, 20 years or so after the writing of the Synoptics and the destruction of the Temple during the Jewish War of AD 66-70. For the first 35 years or so after Jesus’ death and resurrection (AD 30-65) the Jesus movement was still within the broad parameters of Judaism, even though it quickly spread to the Gentile world and welcomed Gentiles. That created a dilemma: What was this movement? It was sort of Jewish, but then it wasn’t because it welcomed Gentiles without requiring them to be circumcised. Thus, over those 35 years, there was a slow, but stead divorce happening between the Jesus movement and Judaism as a whole, with the Jewish War signaling the finalizing of that divorce.
By the time John wrote his Gospel, there was a clear distinction between Christians and Jews. That is why John simply calls Jesus’ opponents “the Jews.” John was writing to people who might not know about the various Jewish sects in Judea 60 years prior. It would be like if I wrote a WWII account about Patton and said he fought “the Germans.” Well, he didn’t literally fight all the Germans, and not all Germans were enemies of the United States. It would be understood, though, that I was really talking about Nazis.
As for Jesus’ open declarations about being “one with the Father,” I’ll get right to the point. I doubt that he literally said those things. Many of the early Church Fathers noted this difference in John’s Gospel and indicated (to use our modern terms) that they more or less believed that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were more “historically accurate,” if you will, and that John’s Gospel was more of a “spiritual Gospel,” in which he used a lot more symbolism and he put into Jesus’ mouth pronouncements about Jesus that were true, but weren’t made that explicit during his ministry years.
For example, in the Synoptics, when Jesus calms the wind and the sea, the disciples ask in shock, “Who is this guy?” Well the answer is pretty strongly implied: Only God can command the wind and sea, and Jesus just did it—therefore he must be equal some how with God. Still, that isn’t explicitly stated in the Synoptics. By the time John wrote his Gospel, though, he was drawing those clear lines and distinctions and was openly proclaiming a more fully articulated Christology.
All that being said, since most of John’s Gospel is set in and around Jerusalem, with Jesus seemingly constantly running into conflict with the Jews in Jerusalem, maybe he really did say those things! Let’s be honest, we just don’t know.
Conclusions
Back to the debate itself. After both men gave their presentations and then responded, both Ehrman and Evans offered their concluding remarks. Ehrman doubled down on his claim that the Gospels are not histories and that they weren’t historically reliable. He then gave what I felt was a very speculative and very oversimplistic mischaracterization of how the Gospels came to be written. His claim was that the early Christians wanted to spread their faith, so they started telling stories about Jesus, and then more Christians told more stories, and just embellished and changed things as they saw fit, without any real regard for what Jesus actually said and did. Sure, there was some history in the stories, but since they were just retold with embellishments, there is just no way to tell what in the stories is actually history and what is made up. That is what accounts for the differences in the Synoptics. Just stories, stories, and more stories.
Needless to say, I’m not impressed with that answer. First of all, scholars estimate that the number of Christians at the turn of the century was still only about 7,500 worldwide. That is still a small number of people, and given the fact that the apostles were so insistent in holding fast to the traditions that were handed down by Jesus himself, it really strains credulity that among that small group of believers, dedicated to preserving the tradition that was passed down, would so carelessly embellish the stories about Christ as willy-nilly as Ehrman would have us think. I think it is much more realistic (and responsible) to think that there was a fairly stable core of teaching about Jesus that was shared among the early churches, and that the authors of Matthew, Mark and Luke took that core teaching and shaped it into their respective Gospels, using a certain amount of artistic/literary license to help highlight certain themes in their Gospels.
Evans concluded by acknowledging that yes, the Gospels are not histories in the modern sense of the word. People in the first century didn’t write histories in the same was people in the 21st century do. Nevertheless, the Gospels are about actual historical people and events. They present a historically reliable portrait of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Sure, there are some specific items that they disagree on. Sure, there is no way we can go back in a time machine to find out “exactly what happened.” But we can be confident that the portrait of Jesus the Gospels give us is historically accurate and reliable. And I obviously agree with that.
My Conclusion
Over the course of this past week, I’ve had quite a bit of interaction on this issue with a couple of atheists who occasionally frequent my blog. The interaction gets quite tiring really fast. As I said in my previous post, it is painfully obvious that all this talk about how the differences between the Synoptics means they aren’t historically reliable is really a smokescreen. Even if Matthew, Mark, and Luke all agreed that it was two angels and the empty tomb (not a young man, not two men, not a single angel), the atheist would still say the resurrection didn’t happen. The rejection of that account as historical really has nothing to do with the fact that Matthew, Mark, and Luke don’t perfectly agree on who was at the tomb on Easter Sunday. Rather, it has to do with the fact that the atheist doesn’t believe God exists and therefore doesn’t believe miracles happen. That’s why they discount the resurrection story as unhistorical. That’s okay. Just say that, but don’t keep peddling these rather oversimplistic and naïve arguments about how the minor differences render the Gospels as wholly historically unreliable.
Not only that, but they insist on saying things like, “Well, what about this passage? What’s your evidence that it’s historical? What about that passage, or this one or that one? Ha! You are a fraud! A fundamentalist given over to superstition because you’re afraid of hell!” –It’s like arguing with children. CS Lewis was right when he said warned about people like that:
“Very often, this silly procedure is adopted by people who are not silly, but who, consciously or unconsciously, want to destroy Christianity. Such people put up a version of Christianity suitable for a child of six and make that the object of their attack. When you try to explain the Christian doctrine as it is really held by an instructed adult, they then complain that you are making their heads turn round and that it is all too complicated and that if there really were a God they are sure He would have made ‘religion’ simple, because simplicity is so beautiful, etc. You must be on your guard against such people for they will change their ground every minute and only waste your time.”
That leads me to another point. I don’t really think Ehrman really believes everything he’s saying. He’ll openly acknowledge that he believes Jesus was a real person, had a messianic movement, was arrested and crucified around Passover around the year AD 30. He’ll openly acknowledge a number of other things about the historical Jesus as well. Of course, where did he get all that information from? From the Gospels. Therefore, despite his argument that you can’t trust the Gospels and that they aren’t historically reliable, the fact is that Ehrman does find them reliable enough to give a historical picture of Jesus. Simply put, his rhetoric doesn’t match what he actually believes about Jesus. Or to put it another way, I think he is purposely amplifying his rhetoric, because it sells more books.
Not to be mean (and actually, to be funny), but when you look at many of his books—Misquoting Jesus, When Jesus Became God, Forged, Jesus Interrupted—they’re all pretty much the same book, repackaged. When I say that, I feel a bit like Mugato in the movie Zoolander, when he screams about all the supposedly different “looks” that male model Derek Zoolander has: “The man has only one look! Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigra? They’re the same face! Doesn’t anyone notice this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” But hey, if you have a public who will buy it…but yeah, they’re essentially the same book.
In any case, of course there are differences in the Gospels. That doesn’t call into question the overall historical reliability of the Gospels. Yes, they’re not “modern histories.” No one is claiming they are. No, they aren’t attempting to give a clear, blow by blow, strictly chronological timeline of Jesus’ ministry. The authors move things around, alter minor details here and there. It isn’t because they were just mindlessly copying different embellished stories that Christians just changed willy-nilly over three decades. It is because they were authors, not just secretaries taking dictation. They were relating history and telling the story of Jesus. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. We need to be okay with that.
No, we can’t “conclusively prove” every single, solitary account in the Gospels is “historically accurate” in every way. Sure, there will always be a few passages that seem more “out there” than others. Our job is it understand what the authors were trying to convey. We should reject that oversimplistic, fundamentalist mindset—whether it comes from a Christian or an atheist—that views the Bible as nothing more than a list of facts that need to be meticulously proven or disproven at every turn.
“Clement of Alexandria, writing around AD 180, tells us that after the Synoptics had been written and passed around to the early Church communities during the second half of the first century, that John of Ephesus, who was one of the original disciples, approved of those Gospels and acknowledged them to be truthful.”
Oh my goodness. I can’t believe a professor of biblical studies would make such a statement! Why do conservative Christians engage in such deceitful apologetic arguments?
“John of Ephesus was one of the original disciples” Really? Says who??
The belief that the John of Ephesus referenced by several early Church Fathers, was John, the son of Zebedee or even some other traveling companion/disciple of Jesus named John is strongly contested. In fact, it is probably the case that the only scholars who believe that “John of Ephesus” knew Jesus personally are fundamentalist Protestants and evangelicals!
Shame on you Joel for stating this minority scholarly view as if it is a fact. Even if you are alleging that this is what Clement said, your readers deserve better. You should point out contested claims, not present them as facts.
I apologize that I didn’t launch into a full discussion about the identity of John of Ephesus–whether he was the actual apostle, or another John who was still nonetheless an early follower of Christ. Whether you read Clement, Ireneaus, or Polycarp, they indicate it was John the Apostle. I stated a fact. Don’t have a conniption.
“if I wrote a WWII account about Patton and said he fought “the Germans.” Well, he didn’t literally fight all the Germans, and not all Germans were enemies of the United States. It would be understood, though, that I was really talking about Nazis.”
Only 29% of the German army were members of the National Socialist (Nazi) party. the truth is, Patton fought the German army, which consisted primarily of non-Nazis, therefore, Patton fought “the Germans”.
“As for Jesus’ open declarations about being “one with the Father,” I’ll get right to the point. I doubt that he literally said those things.’
Exactly!
And that is why I, Ark, Bart Ehrman, most Jews, most Muslims, and millions of other people doubt the historicity of the detailed appearance of a resurrected body claims as told in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, John, and in the Book of Acts! The Gospels are not history texts! They are works of evangelism. They contain some facts and a lot of fiction. So when it comes to fantastical stories or improbable stories (a “great crowd” welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem as King of the Jews) we can write these stories off as most likely non-historical embellishments to the Jesus Story.
Thank you for finally admitting that the Gospels are not historically reliable.
Thank you for putting your rigid fundamentalist mindset on full display.
“For example, in the Synoptics, when Jesus calms the wind and the sea, the disciples ask in shock, “Who is this guy?” Well the answer is pretty strongly implied: Only God can command the wind and sea, and Jesus just did it—therefore he must be equal some how with God. Still, that isn’t explicitly stated in the Synoptics. By the time John wrote his Gospel, though, he was drawing those clear lines and distinctions and was openly proclaiming a more fully articulated Christology.”
Moses calmed the sea and wind. Does that “strongly imply” that he was God??
Of course not. Your claim is not good evidence that the original disciples viewed Jesus as God (Yahweh). They may have viewed him as divine in some sense, but angels are divine in some sense, that doesn’t make them God.
Please go away, Gary. I fully regret asking you a few weeks ago who the “former evangelist” who got you to reject Christianity was. I had no idea that you would come back to troll my blog again.
“Needless to say, I’m not impressed with that answer. First of all, scholars estimate that the number of Christians at the turn of the century was still only about 7,500 worldwide. That is still a small number of people, and given the fact that the apostles were so insistent in holding fast to the traditions that were handed down by Jesus himself, it really strains credulity that among that small group of believers, dedicated to preserving the tradition that was passed down, would so carelessly embellish the stories about Christ as willy-nilly as Ehrman would have us think.”
Yet…this is exactly what the majority of Bible scholars believe happened! The stories about Jesus were HEAVILY embellished by the time they reached the Evangelists, who were non-eyewitnesses living in far away lands. Only fundamentalist Protestants and evangelicals believe that the stories of Jesus were maintained with the same careful detail and accuracy as maintained by the temple scribes of the Torah. Come on, Joel! We are talking about FISHERMEN and other peasants, not temple scribes.
Go away Gary, your rock solid certainty is only matched by your inability to think critically.
“The rejection of that account as historical really has nothing to do with the fact that Matthew, Mark, and Luke don’t perfectly agree on who was at the tomb on Easter Sunday. Rather, it has to do with the fact that the atheist doesn’t believe God exists and therefore doesn’t believe miracles happen. That’s why they discount the resurrection story as unhistorical. That’s okay. Just say that, but don’t keep peddling these rather oversimplistic and naïve arguments about how the minor differences render the Gospels as wholly historically unreliable.”
You can continue to make this claim until you are blue in the face, Joel, but it doesn’t change the fact that YOU are the one behaving like a fundamentalist on this issue. I and Ark stand with the majority of Bible scholars: The Gospels contain significant embellishments, making it very difficult to tease out fact from embellishment (fiction). Did Jesus exist? Yes. Did Jesus have a reputation as a healer and miracle worker? Yes. Was Jesus crucified by Pilate? Yes. Was his grave found empty? Contested, but probably.
Did he attend a wedding in Cana? Who knows. Did he ride a donkey into Jerusalem? Who knows. Was he born in Bethlehem? Who knows!
Stop thinking like a fundamentalist, Joel. The historical accuracy of the Gospels is not an all or none issue. It is not black or white. We never suggested that EVERY claim in the Gospels is false, yet that is what you imply that we believe. You have created a convenient strawman!
No, Gary. Go away. Please stop.
“We never suggested that every claim in the Gospels is false….” but then you continue to throw out specific story after story with, “Is THIS historical? Is THAT false?” Your persistent line of questions reveal your duplicity. Go away.
“No, we can’t “conclusively prove” every single, solitary account in the Gospels is “historically accurate” in every way. Sure, there will always be a few passages that seem more “out there” than others.”
Excellent. That is what I and Ark have been saying all along! You nor anyone else can prove that every story in the Gospels is historical. There you’ve finally said it, Joel. Thank you! We can’t prove that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. We can’t prove that Jesus instructed the scribes and priests in the Temple at age 12. We can’t prove that Jesus fed five thousand people one afternoon. We can’t prove that Jesus rode a colt into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And we can’t prove that he appeared to his disciples in an “upper room” where he let them stick their fingers into his wounds and then they all ate a broiled fish lunch! These stories MAY be non-historical.
Thank you for finally agreeing with me and Ark.
“Our job is it understand what the authors were trying to convey. We should reject that oversimplistic, fundamentalist mindset—whether it comes from a Christian or an atheist—that views the Bible as nothing more than a list of facts that need to be meticulously proven or disproven at every turn.”
Amen, amen, amen!
We should NOT view the Bible as a list of facts. We should view it as we would any other book from Antiquity. A fascinating collection of the thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and superstitions of ancient peoples writing in a scientifically ignorant, superstition-dominated time and culture, making it imperative for us to carefully dissect fact from fiction in their writings.
I could not have said it better, Joel. Thank you for the discussion.
SMH…how you got this far in life without the ability to comprehend what you read is truly amazing.
Gary, with respect, you sound like a broken record. You are nothing if not persistent.
Yo’re doing exactly what CS Lewis described 70 years ago–creating a caricature of Christianity and then attacking it wifh all the relish of Don Quihote for those windmills he was jousting at.
Either you aren’t aware of this, which is just sad, or you are, which is disingenuous.
You’re mising the forest by obsesing over indivual trees.
As for the ancients being ignorant of science, they were certainly smart enough to know that dead bodies don’t normally walk out of their tombs three days later, and yet they still made that audacious claim. The skeptic needs to give us a plausible reason why they would tell such a ludicrous lie or fairy-tale knowing that both Jews and Greeks would find it extremely difficult to believe it.
No, we can’t prove Jesus rode a colt into Jerusalem. We also can’t *prove* that John Wilkes Boothe shot Abraham Lincoln in April of 1865. Noth with the kind of proof atheists demand of the gospel accounts regarding Jesus.
The Doc is right–you don’t believe in Jesus’ resurrection because you don’t believe in the supernatural. Your other arguments about which gospel stories we can believe are just distractions. Why not quit wasting our time and yours and just admit that you don’t believe the Bible is in any sense factual because of it’s miraculous claims,
Pax.
Lee.
Joel is a professional Strawman creator. He will not admit that I and most skeptics of the Resurrection have stated multiple times that SOME of the statements in the Gospels may be historically reliable (facts). Yet he continues to erect the Strawman that we reject the Gospels in toto as fiction/myth.
The truth is, we and Joel are in agreement! Some of the Gospel stories may be factual and others probably are not. Joel has stated this in so many words.
But Joel will not admit that one or all of the detailed Appearance Stories are fictional, even though there is no way he can prove they are not. And why won’t Joel admit this? Answer: If it is possible that the detailed appearance stories of a walking, talking, resurrected corpse are fictional, then it is possible that all anyone saw was…a bright light…just like Paul!
And that would be devastating for Christian apologetics, and he knows it.
Typo: “But Joel will not admit that one or all of the detailed Appearance Stories COULD BE fictional…”
Gary, as for the resurrection apperances being fictional, why would the authors of the gospels purposely invent such ridiculous (to other Jews and Greeks) stories, insisting they happened in actual space-time history ?
It’s time for you to put your money whete your mouth has been all of these months and put forward a counter-explanation that satisfactorily explains all of the data.
So. Gary. Considering that resurrection–let alone crufixion–wasn’t on ANYONE’S radar, how is it that the gospels insist that both of these events happened? What would make them invent the resurrection (no professional scholar of any stripe seriously questons the crucifixion), or at the least genuinely believe it to be true if it weren’t, seeing as how resurrsction wasn’t on anyone’s radar and anyone alive in Jerusalemi AD 30/33 could easily expose their lies.
And how could they confuse a light for a person? I don’t care how stressed they were, that scenario is impossible for me to accept. Messanic Judaism allowed for the eventual bodily resurrection of all the faithful (it’s just that no one was expecting one guy ahead of all the rest); after all, the Maccabean martyrs tell the Syrians torturing them that if they cut off their limbs that at the resurrection YHWH will restore said limbs, not show them a bright light!
Your arguments sound to me like a skeptic who has been forced to admit that at least some of the gospel stories are based on real history, but not the resurrsction accounts, thus is desperately trying to posit counter-explnations to explain them away. And not doing a really convincing job of it. It takes less faith for me to believe a dead body got up and walked out of the tomb than that the disciples couldn’t tell the differenc between a light and a human being.
I’m sorry, Gary, your arguments honestly sound desperate to me. Unless you have a *much* more persuasive explanation.
Pax.
Lee.
“why would the authors of the gospels purposely invent such ridiculous (to other Jews and Greeks) stories, insisting they happened in actual space-time history ?”
Very fundamentalist thinking.
The authors of the Gospels were writing works of evangelism, not history textbooks. And to write those works of evangelism, they used a genre of literature which allows for embellishments. Do you believe that dead saints literally walked the streets of Jerusalem? Evangelical scholar Mike Licona does not, nor do most scholars. So why couldn’t the detailed stories of people seeing a walking, talking corpse not be embellishments?
You have no good answer, do you?
Lee’s point is that if the early Christians were writing works of evangelism, then making the claim that Jesus rose from the dead would be the dumbest thing to do if the Christians were appealing to Greeks. The Greeks viewed the material body as a “mortal coil” that needed to be shed. That is why Paul was laughed at at Mars Hill. The Greeks found the idea of a resurrection to be utterly stupid and laughable. AND YET, Paul went out to the Greek world and proclaimed just that. Why? You don’t have a good answer for that.
As always, you forego the constant declaration of Jesus’ resurrection that is found in all four Gospels and throughout the NT, and you zero in on two verses in Matthew that sound odd. You don’t try to first understand what Matthew might be doing, you just saying, “Woah! That’s weird! All of the NT’s resurrection story are weird and made up!”
Eh…
Joel: “Lee’s point is that if the early Christians were writing works of evangelism, then making the claim that Jesus rose from the dead would be the dumbest thing to do if the Christians were appealing to Greeks.”
Christianity did not start among Gentiles. It started among Jews. It was originally a Jewish sect. I seriously doubt that the original followers of Jesus cared a rat’s behind what Gentiles thought of their resurrection of Jesus belief. Let me be clear:
I do NOT believe that the authors of the Gospels invented the Resurrection of Jesus belief!!!!
I believe (as do most scholars) that this belief developed very soon after Jesus’ death among his JEWISH disciples. I believe that this Resurrection Belief was NOT an invention. The early Christians sincerely believed this event occurred. I believe this belief could have only developed in a Jewish setting because only Jews had the concept of a dead body coming back to life. This was a totally foreign concept to Romans and other Gentiles.
So, no, the Resurrection Belief was not invented, in my opinion. But the stories of a walking, talking corpse that eats broiled fish and levitates into the clouds COULD very well have been invented. Why? Answer: Evangelism and good story telling!
“So. Gary. Considering that resurrection–let alone crufixion–wasn’t on ANYONE’S radar, how is it that the gospels insist that both of these events happened? What would make them invent the resurrection (no professional scholar of any stripe seriously questons the crucifixion), or at the least genuinely believe it to be true if it weren’t, seeing as how resurrsction wasn’t on anyone’s radar and anyone alive in Jerusalemi AD 30/33 could easily expose their lies.”
I do not question the historicity of Jesus’ crucifixion. You are confusing me with a mythicist.
How did the resurrection of Jesus belief develop? I don’t know, but here is my best guess:
–An empty tomb led to speculation as to why it was empty.
–The initial thought was that someone had moved/stolen the -body.
–Someone, maybe Peter, had a vivid dream in which Jesus appears to him, tells him that God has raised him from the dead, and that the promised New Kingdom is “still on”.
–Peter’s excitement over this “vision” leads to other “visions” and false sightings of Jesus.
–But Jesus never shows up.
–Someone comes up with the idea that, like Elijah, God has taken Jesus to heaven…but, he will return as the conquering Messiah to establish the New Kingdom, any day now.
–Then someone comes up with the idea that Jesus wasn’t just raised from the dead, he was resurrected from the dead, as the FIRST FRUITS, the rest of the righteous dead will be raised when Jesus returns in day now.
And that is how the Resurrection Story PROBABLY started. But this is just a hunch. Can’t prove it. It is only a guess as to how this odd belief came about.
What evidence do I have: This is how every cult and sect on the planet has started. They take a concept present in the mother religion (resurrection) and tweak it. That is what the early Christians did: They tweaked the Jewish concept of resurrection.
Speculation and conjecture.
Joel: “Speculation and conjecture.”
How do you explain the Appearance of the Angel Moroni to Joseph Smith Story? Please provide evidence, not just speculation and conjecture.
Joseph Smith was a con artist who had a history of conning people.
Gary, Dr. Anderson is right. This is nothing but speculation amd conjecture. Furthermore, speculation and conjecture based upon an inadequate understanding of ancient Messianic Judaism.
This is why you need to read carefully NT Wright’s *The New Testament and the People of God*, as he spends a very long section describing first century Messianic Juadaism.
As Wright says, faced with the execution of their erstwhile messiah NO member of such a group would then claim that said messiah was really the genuine article after all because he had appeared to them in a dream then as bright (talking!) light–that is just not tenable. Because as I keep stressing, in ancient Mesianic Judaism a DEAD Messiah was a FALSE messiah because the *real* Messiah *could not be killed.* Suffer? Maybe. Die? No way! As Wright says, faced with the death of your messiah, you either pick another messiah or you pack it in and go home.
Jesus’ movement is thus the ONLY ancient Messianic Jewish movement to survive the death of its founder for that reason.
After his being killed by the Romans Bar Kochba’s followers didn’t suddenly claim to have proof that he was the Messiah afrer all becase one of their number had had a dream, while everybody else saw a bright light in the sky.
No, your conjecture is wildly improbable. I go back to Occam’s razor again.
Pax.
Lee.
Joel: “Joseph Smith was a con artist who had a history of conning people.”
Can a liar and con artist sometimes tell the truth? Of course they can!
Please provide evidence that the Story of the Angel Moroni’s Appearance to Joseph Smith was a lie and a con.
You can’t. You can only engage in speculation and conjecture, exactly what I am doing about the Appearance of Jesus Stories.
Look at the life of Joseph Smith. He was a wholly untrustworthy person.
Lee: “As Wright says, faced with the execution of their erstwhile messiah NO member of such a group would then claim that said messiah was really the genuine article after all because he had appeared to them in a dream then as bright (talking!) light–that is just not tenable. Because as I keep stressing, in ancient Mesianic Judaism a DEAD Messiah was a FALSE messiah because the *real* Messiah *could not be killed.* Suffer? Maybe. Die? No way! As Wright says, faced with the death of your messiah, you either pick another messiah or you pack it in and go home.”
Are you saying it is IMPOSSIBLE that members of a small, first century, Jewish, messianic sect came to the conclusion that their dead leader’s empty grave combined with vivid dreams/false sightings was a sign that God had raised him from the dead and that he would soon return to earth as the messiah? I agree with you that it is improbable, but I challenge you to prove it impossible.
The improbable happens all the time. It is improbable that Jews would convert to Islam. It is improbable that evangelical Christians would convert to orthodox Judaism, but it happens! Saying that something did not happen because it is improbable is ridiculous. Humans are infamous for doing and believing the improbable. First century Jews (at least some of them) believed in bodily resurrection. A very, very small subset of those first century Jews who believed in bodily resurrection came to believe in a new, alternative version of Resurrection . Improbable, yes. Impossible, no. Congruent with human history and the development of new sects branching off of the mother religion, absolutely!
“Look at the life of Joseph Smith. He was a wholly untrustworthy person.”
Look at the life of the author of Mark. Oh wait, we can’t, because most scholars say we don’t know who he was. We have no means to evaluate the character of the author of Mark (or Matthew, or Luke, or John).
Once again, you have ZERO evidence for any alternative explanation for the alleged appearance of the angel Moroni to a man in upstate New York in the 1830’s.. But by your standard, we should accept this man’s claim because zero evidence exists for any other explanation. (Just because a man has lied in the past does not mean he is lying in this situation.)
And just because there is no evidence for alternative, natural explanations for the development of the Resurrection Belief does not mean that one of them can’t be true.
Your logic is faulty.
“And how could they confuse a light for a person? ”
Human beings do it all the time. They see a bright light on the ceiling of their bedroom and believe it is Jesus. Go on Youtube and you can find many very sincere Christians who believe Jesus appeared to them, but all they SAW was a bright light. Thousands of (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) Christians have seen bright lights, odd cloud formations and believed them to be appearances of Jesus’ mother. Why do you assume that first century Jews were any less gullible?
We’re talking about a group of ancient Jews, Gary, who had just witnessed their would-be messiah executed by the Romans, thus had no reason to expect to see anything, especially a resurrected human being. In their minds Jesus’ crucifixion proved that the WASN’T the Messiah. So how do you explain them seeing anything at all?
But again, these people knew the difference between a real person and a hallucination.
If it were ancient Greeks or Romans, I’d concede the possibility, but not ancient Palestinian Messianic Jews.
Pax.
Lee.
Lee: “We’re talking about a group of ancient Jews, Gary, who had just witnessed their would-be messiah executed by the Romans, thus had no reason to expect to see anything, especially a resurrected human being.”
The original claim was that Jesus was “risen”, not “resurrected”. The idea that someone could appear from the dead already existed in Judaism (the story of Samuel). And even in Jesus’ time there were rumors that people were walking around, back from the dead (Herod thought Jesus was John the Baptist back from the dead).
I doubt that the “resurrection” concept developed immediately. It probably started as “God raised Jesus from the dead” and eventually turned into “resurrected from the dead” as I suggested above. Resurrection was an existing concept in Judaism. Christians just gave it a new twist, typical of a new religious sect or cult.
Interesting. You accuse Dr. Anderson of strawmen but introduce concepts of bright light. Paul saw the resurrected body of Jesus. Resurrection would have been understood as a transformed body by the first century Jews. This has been elaborated by NT scholars like Dr. Larry Hurtado. A body that was previously dead is transformed into an immortal body. I honestly have no idea where you got that idea of bright light from.
Second, the resurrection appearances are only fictional to someone who has a worldview of naturalism. Some of your comments about morality have a strong stand on naturalism. It is your choice to believe in naturalism but to accuse someone that they believe in fiction is not helping anyone and just shows your dishonesty and complete and utter ignorance in philosophy.
“Paul saw the resurrected body of Jesus.”
Please provide a passage, from any book in the New Testament, where Paul claims to have seen a body.
Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? (1Co 9:1 NRS)
In addition, it is quite clear that Paul, a Pharisee, proclaimed that Jesus had been resurrected. And the Pharisaic notion of resurrection was one of a physical resurrection of the body. That is what it means.
All the resurrection appearances in Luke and elsewhere in Acts are undeniably physical (Luke 24; Acts 1:6–11, Acts 10:41), and so, at most, the appearances to Paul are, at best, a less clear example of a physical appearance.
“Lee’s point is that if the early Christians were writing works of evangelism, then making the claim that Jesus rose from the dead would be the dumbest thing to do if the Christians were appealing to Greeks. ”
No where in that passage does Paul claim to have seen a body.
I do not question that Paul sincerely believed that Jesus had appeared to him; that he had literally seen *something*. The question is: What did Paul see exactly?
Question: Must one see a resurrected body to believe in resurrected bodies? No. Millions of Christians today believe in resurrections but have never seen a resurrected body. Must one see a resurrected body to believe that a bodily resurrected person has appeared to them? No. Thousands of devout Christians have seen a bright light or an odd cloud formation and believed that it was the bodily resurrected Jesus appearing to them.
You ASSUME that because Paul claims to have “seen the Christ” that he saw a body. You cannot prove this is the case.
Lol…If I say, “Yeah, I met Bob,” “I’ve seen Bob,” are you going to take that Bob is a person whom I’ve actually seen and met?
Nerd: “All the resurrection appearances in Luke and elsewhere in Acts are undeniably physical (Luke 24; Acts 1:6–11, Acts 10:41), and so, at most, the appearances to Paul are, at best, a less clear example of a physical appearance.”
The question at hand is: Were the Appearance Stories in the Gospels and Acts historical events or theological/literary embellishments?
You then use the documents in question as proof that they are historical events. This is a circular argument. I suggest looking at the earliest appearance stories, found in the I Corinthians 15. Any mention of a body? No.
Joel: “Lol…If I say, “Yeah, I met Bob,” “I’ve seen Bob,” are you going to take that Bob is a person whom I’ve actually seen and met?”
According to Paul, many Jews in Asia Minor believed in Jesus’ bodily resurrection simply by taking Paul’s word and “searching the Scriptures”. This is evidence that first century Jews did NOT need to *see* a resurrected body to believe in a resurrected body. It is therefore very possible that Paul *saw* the Christ in the same way that Mary Katherine *saw* the Virgin Mary: a bright light or an odd shaped cloud. I know you don’t believe this explanation is probable, but you can’t logically say it is impossible. And to the millions of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists, this is the most probable explanation for Paul’s claim of *seeing* a dead guy.
Human beings are very gullible.
Dr Anderson,
Your book reviews are always clear and easy to understand. If possible, could you do a review of a book called does the OT endorse slavery by atheist assyriologist Dr. Joshua Bowen.
Yours Sincerely,
The Programming Nerd
Dr. Anderson,
I apologize for asking this but is it possible to review the above written book?
Yours Sincerely,
The Programming Nerd
I don’t think I’ll be able to do it in thr near future. Maybe once the semester is over?
Dear Dr. Anderson,
It’s okay. One day, I hope you can review it.
Yours Sincerely,
The Programming Nerd
Gary, your theory won’t really work and here’s why.
At the time Paul claims to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus he did not believe Jesus was Israel’s Messiah, because as all Mesissanic Jews like Paul took for granted, a crucified Messiah was a false Messiah. Thus Paul had no reason to expect Jesus to even BE resurrected, let alone resurrected by himself in the middle of history.
Paul thought Jesus was a liar, thus the last person he expected to see was Jesus of Nazareth. At the end of the creed Paul quotes in I Corinthians 15: 3-7, he says that the resurrected Jesus appeared to approximately 500 people, many of whom were still living in AD 55 when he was writing the first letter to Corinth, meaning that skeptics at Corinth could ask these people. At the end of that same section he indicates that whatever the eleven and the other 489 people saw was the same thing, or rather, person. The gospels stress that it was a *resurrected Jesus* that the eleven all saw. They knew the difference betwen a human body and a bright light. Yet because *none of them* were expecting to see *anything*, whether a light or a person, how do you explain them insisting they saw anything at all?
You claim to have read Wright’s *The Resurrection of the Son of God.* Wright goes over this at some length in the book. Maybe you should read over that section again.
So Saul of Tarsus, as a dedicated opponent of Christianity who believed Jesus had been a phony, didn’t expect to see *anything*, whether a person or a light in the sky. What would cause him–or the 11 disciples–to suddenly change their minds and decide Jesus really *was* the Messiah after all?
And why would any of these Messianic Jews mistake a bright light for a resurrected human being? Seeing as howcresurrection ALWAYS involved a dead human body being raised to life again.
Occam’s razor says that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. The simplest explanation in this case is that the disciples, the 500 and Paul all realoy did think they hasd seen Jesus bodily resurrected from the dead.
Again, what would convince them of thiis, seeing as how Jesus’ execution convinced all of the pre-Easter disciples and Paul that Jesus was cursed by God?
Pax.
Lee.
“At the end of the creed Paul quotes in I Corinthians 15: 3-7, he says that the resurrected Jesus appeared to approximately 500 people, many of whom were still living in AD 55 when he was writing the first letter to Corinth, meaning that skeptics at Corinth could ask these people.”
Speculation.
Paul admits this information he had “received”. From whom? Christians assume he received from Peter and James during his visit to Jerusalem. Speculation and conjecture! Paul does not tell us from whom he received this information. So for all we know, 500 people sitting on a mountain saw a bright light or a cloud and believed it to be an appearance of Jesus.
” At the end of that same section he indicates that whatever the eleven and the other 489 people saw was the same thing, or rather, person.”
You had it right the first time: “same THING”. We have no idea what any of these alleged witnesses saw because Paul nor the Early Creed tells us.
“What would cause him–or the 11 disciples–to suddenly change their minds and decide Jesus really *was* the Messiah after all?”
Possibilities: “vision”–vivid dreams. First century people of all religions seemed to have a lot of visions. Most people today don’t put a lot of stock in their dreams, but that wasn’t always the case. Dreams used to be seen as predictors of the future. Most non-Christians believe that the most likely cause of the disciples’ resurrection belief was due to vivid dreams (visions) or other tricks of the mind.
No, that is NOT speculation. That is EXACTLY what Paul said.
What Paul received obviously came from believers who were followers before him. It doesn’t have to be Peter or James. It could have been Barnabas. Who knows? But we do know that it still was a very small, tight-knit community.
Gary, please just stop. All your comments amount to little more than, “Nu-uh!” It just gets tiresome.
“obviously”
A synonym for “speculation” and “conjecture”.
Where do you think Paul got his information from? The oracle od Delphi?
It is not “speculation” to say Paul got his information from believers who were followers before him.
I think Paul “received” his information, directly from Jesus (at least in his mind). I think Paul was someone prone to visions, hallucinations, and other tricks of the mind.
Gary, you’re starting to wear me out, which admittedly takes a bit of work. Yet nothing any of us have or can say to you will break through your dogged refusal to think critically. The Doc’s right. You do sound rather like a petulant fifth-grader.
The way you keep insisting that ancient Messianic Jews uncritically put enough stock in dreams and visions to be convinced that a man they were formerly certain was a religious charlaton was legitimate is just juvenile. That is not the way ancient Messianic Jewish sects operated: if your Messiah was killed that was PROOF that he WASN’T the Messiah. Why? Because Torah said so. No Messianic Jew like Saul of Tarsus, a Shammaite Pharisee, was going to reverse his opinion regarding a man he viewed as a false messiah based purely on something as subjective and speculative as a dream or a vision.But if he met him, resurrected, in the flesh . . .
For Peter in Acts 2, Jesus’ resurrection, not a bright light and a disembodied voicem was the proof that he was ths Messiah, God’s Anointed.
Pax.
Lee.
“Occam’s razor says that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. The simplest explanation in this case is that the disciples, the 500 and Paul all realoy did think they hasd seen Jesus bodily resurrected from the dead.”
That is just ridiculous. If we are going to follow that standard, we must accept Mohammad and Joseph Smiths angelic appearance claims as real because they are the “simplest explanation”. The simplest explanation is that the disciples, Joseph Smith, and Mohammad were either lying, drunk, hallucinating, or experiencing illusions or delusions which they sincerely believed to be true. We cannot prove which is the case with any of the groups. We can only speculate.
Amazing Gary…but every time I read a comment of yours, I start to yawn.
As for my Occam’s razor quote, Gary, you might want to go back and read carefully what I wrote.
What I said is that the simplest solution is that Paul and the 500 at the very least *believed* they had seen a human body and not just a talking light.
Pax.
Lee.
Do you believe that it is possible for someone to see a bright light and think they have seen the bodily resurrected Jesus? Paul, at least according to the author of Acts, seemed to think so.
Book of Acts, chapter 26:
I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, 13 when at midday along the road, your Excellency,[c] I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. 14 When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew[d] language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’ 15 I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me[e] and to those in which I will appear to you. 17 I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
“After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision
Gary: At no point does Paul say he saw a “body”.
No, Messianic Jews did not need to *see* a resurrected body to believe in the concept of resurrection, all they would have to do is read their Maccabees scrolls again.
The Bereans thus weren’t searching their OT scrolls for proof of resurrection, but evidence that the OT messianic prophecies really did apply to Jesus of Nazareth.
In I Corinthians 15 Paul says believers will one day recieve the same kind of resurrected body Jesus had at his resurrection, the word for “body”, which if you check Strong’s you’ll note, is *soma*, which denotes a physical body. When Paul was brought before the Sanhedrin in Acts 23, noting that some members of the council were Pharisees, he defends himself basically by claiming he’s on trial because of his belief in the resurrection of the body, because he also noted that other members of the council were Saducees, thus rejected the idea of resurrection, realizing that his assertion would cause an argument among the council members, which it did.
Again, these people knew the difference betwen a human body and a bright light.
Pax.
Lee.
Must one see a resurrected body to believe that a resurrected person has appeared to him? I say, no. Thousands of Christians throughout the last 2,000 years have claimed that Jesus has appeared to them, and many of these instances involved bright lights and clouds.
*
You CANNOT prove that Paul saw a resurrected *body* just because he believed a resurrected *person* had appeared to him.
If you can’t understand that, I am not going to keep beating a dead horse.
“At the time Paul claims to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus he did not believe Jesus was Israel’s Messiah, because as all Mesissanic Jews like Paul took for granted, a crucified Messiah was a false Messiah. Thus Paul had no reason to expect Jesus to even BE resurrected, let alone resurrected by himself in the middle of history.”
I agree. It would take something pretty dramatic to change Paul’s mind. The question is: Was the only means of changing Paul’s mind about the Jesus Movement a literal appearance of a resurrected dead man? I and millions of other non-Christians, theists and non-theists, do not think so. We believe it is possible for someone to have a dramatic change of mind and life-direction based on a vivid dream, an illusion, a delusion, or an hallucination. Dramatic conversions are not unheard of. Paul was not the first nor the last unusual conversion.
Yet how many people do you know who would risk their lives on that kind of nebulous evidence? That’s what Paul ultimately did–he insisted that the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth was king and not Caesar and it got him executed by Nero ca. 65-67 AD. I can’t think of any people willing to die for something that might just have been an illusion or a hallucination.
And your theory still doesn’t explain what prompted Saul of Tarsus, a dedicated enemy of thd Jesus Movement, to have such a dream or hallucination in ths first place. As I keep saying, had this actually hapened it would’ve been the first and only time in ancient Messianic Judaism that it anhthing even close to this ever happened.
Pax.
Lee.
“I can’t think of any people willing to die for something that might just have been an illusion or a hallucination.”
Most people who have delusions or hallucinations believe them to be real, and unless they undergo therapy and are treated with medication, they often continue to believe their delusions are true for the rest of their lives.
But even if Paul was mentally healthy, plenty of people have made really, really weird life decisions throughout human history that to outsiders looks completely nuts. Weird conversions are NOT proof that a new belief is true.
“And your theory still doesn’t explain what prompted Saul of Tarsus, a dedicated enemy of thd Jesus Movement, to have such a dream or hallucination in ths first place.”
According to Paul he was a persecutor of Christians. Therefore, issues related to Christians, such as their odd belief that one, Jesus of Nazareth, executed by the Romans, was the Jewish Messiah who was soon to return to earth to establish the New Kingdom of Israel, would have been on his mind a lot. And one night, after a long day of travel, dehydrated and exhausted, his mind played tricks on him…and who pops into his mind: Jesus.
It isn’t as if Elvis Presley popped into Paul’s mind. THAT would have been a miracle!
Gary, please stop.
Paul wouldn’t have to emphasise the fact that he’d seen a resurrected BODY because there was NO OTHER kind of resurrection. It’s akin to someone saying “I just saw a dead corpse.” You don’t need to emphasize that the corpse was dead because there’s no other kind of corpse.
Besides which, in I Corinthians 15: 3-7, Paul recites a creed stressing Jesus’ resurrection, which, again, necessarily entailed a physical body, thus it would bd redundant for him to have to clarify that he was talking about a real human being and not a light or hallucination.
Pax.
Lee.
Lee, Must one see a resurrected body to believe in a resurrected body?
GARY: Must one see a resurrected body to believe in a resurrected body?
LEE: If I’m a first century AD Messianic Jew whose would-be Messiah was just executed by Pontius Pilate . . .
Absolutely!
Pax.
Lee.
Wrong! If Paul is correct, hundreds of first century AD Messianic Jews in Asia Minor believed in the bodily resurrection of Jesus without seeing a body!
Gary, of course the Bereans never saw the resurrected Jesus the way Saul/Paul did–they were convinced by his message, after they searched their OT scrolls to see whether the prophecies fit Jesus of Nazareth.
As we keep saying though, because none of Jesus’ original band of followers expected Jesus to resurrect in the first place, they needed tangible proof. They then had to convince other equally skeptical Messianic Jews that their crucified,Messiah was the real deal, which they did, partly by telling the stories of his passion and resurrection secondly by showing groups like the Bereans that Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection actually were foretold in the OT.
Pax.
Lee.
This young man believes the bodily resurrected Jesus appeared to him…but admits he never saw a body.
What young man? Paul?
He said that he had “seen the Lord.”
This young woman says that Jesus appeared to her out of a bright light, but only a side profile. She saw his long flowing hair, but not his face.
If someone in the 21st century, who at least has a high school education, can believe that Jesus bodily appeared to her, why should we be surprised that people in the first century claimed the same thing?? And if you believe this woman really saw Jesus, I have some land in the Everglades to sell you!
This man says he not only saw God, but God opened his arms to him and smiled at him. The man says it happened in a “vision” that was more real than reality. This is probably what happened to Paul, to Peter, and to thousands of other Christians who claim that Jesus appeared to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVlBaG_yb2g
I could go on and on. But do it yourself. Go on Youtube and enter “Jesus appeared to me”. You will find dozens if not hundreds of videos of very sincere people claiming that Jesus of Nazareth, a man who lived and died 2,000 years ago, has appeared to them.
People are gullible, folks. People WANT to believe that magic exists, especially when they are going through a tough time in their life. Don’t be gullible. Dead (brain dead) people don’t come back to life. They don’t appear to their friends. They don’t eat fish sandwiches for lunch. They don’t levitate into the clouds. It is a tall tale. Magic is not real!
Claiming one saw God in a “vision” is different than a first century Jew claiming a RESURRECTION took place.
You need to just stop, Gary. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, buried, and he rose from the dead, conquering death. You can scoff. But your pseudo-intellectualism is a sham.
Please present one statement from the Synoptics where one of the alleged eyewitnesses proclaims, “Jesus has been resurrected!”
The original claims seem to have been that God had *raised( Jesus from the dead. Resurrection was probably a later development. Jews would have no problem with someone claiming to have seen a spirit. Seeing spirits was common place in the first century world, even for Jews. Herod and his court believed that Jesus was John the Baptist back from the dead. No one carted them off to the funny farm. So claiming to have seen a dead person was not unusual. Claiming to have seen a “resurrected person” would have been unusual, but you can’t prove that any of the original eyewitnesses claimed to have seen a “resurrected Jesus” at first. They may have eventually come to see it that way, but the original idea was only that Jesus was “risen”.
Gary, stop it now.
No, Gary. We don’t have to “prove” that the disciples claimed they saw a resurrected body because there was no other kind!
Whether you say “raised” or “resurrected”, the Greek word is *anastasis* and It ALWAYS refers to a dead body coming to life again. Every ancient first century Jew understod that if you saw a ghost then you hadn’t seen a raising from the dead. If you’dbothered to actualy rwad Wright’s *The Resurrection of the Son of God* as you claim you’d know that a non-bodily raising/resurrection is a contradiction in terms. A ghost or spirit has NOT been raised from the dead! A ghost us someone who’s still dead. Disembodied spirits is Platonism, not ancient Judaism and certainly not Messianic Judaism. After Bar Kochba was plastered by the Romans no one claimed he was really alive and really the Messiah because they’d seen his disembodied spirit in a dream!
The gospels deal with this when the disciples think they’ve seen a spirit–because none of them expected a resurrection–but Jesus assures them he’s a real person by eating a meal with them. The ancients knew that ghosts don’t have a hankering for seafood.
And scholars of all persuasions accept that belief in Jesus’ bodily resurrection was an early development, not a late one. The creed Paul cites in Corinthians 15:3-7 has been dated to ca. AD 35-38, less than a dozen years after Jesus’ crucifixion.
You obviously haven’t read *The Resurrection of the Son of God*.
Pax.
Lee.
The word ‘ἠγέρθη’ transliterates into ēgerthē, meaning in its infinitive form ‘to rise’.
Gary, you are simply wrong in your claims. Again, stop.
“And scholars of all persuasions accept that belief in Jesus’ bodily resurrection was an early development, not a late one.”
I agree. The question is, “how early?”
My guess is that “risen” was the first thought, and “resurrection” developed secondarily. It could have happened over a couple of months, or a couple of years, but I agree, it developed early, not decades later.
No. Your attempt to draw a distinction between “risen” and “resurrection” is just wrong. You are out of your depth. Go away.
Dr. Anderson is right, Gary.You can’t re-define terms just to prove your point. That really smacks of desperation.
As NT Wright says:
“Resurrection, then, does not mean ‘survival’; it is not a way of describing the kind of life one might have immediately following physical death.” It is not a *redescription* of death and/or the state which results from death. In both paganism and Judaism it refers to the reversal, the undoing, the conquest of death and its effects. . . .
“Resurrection, then, means being given back one’s body, or perhaps God creating a new, similar body some time after death.” (Emph. in original)
Thus there was no interlude between Jesus’ “rising” and his “resurrection” because they both describe the same event, whi h according toPaul and thd gospels occurred three days after his crucifixion. Please read I Cor. 15:3-7 carefully and note that the creed Paul cites doesn’t allow for a two-stage event; there was ever only one rising from the dead.
Pax.
Lee.
The h word translated “raised” in I Cor. 15 is *anastasis* and Strong’s defines it as “Resurrection, rising again, that should rise, raised to life again.” The word literally means “a standing up again i.e. (literally) a resurrection from death.”
Which would bsthe wrong word to describne, ghost or spirit.
Making up definitions for ancient terms just makes you look foolish or desperate, Gary.
Pax.
Lee.
Please provide a passage in the Synoptics in which “anastasis” is used regarding what allegedly happened to Jesus.
I am fully aware that Paul uses that word, I was speaking about the Synoptics.
Just one one passage in the synoptics which says Jessu was resurrected?
Matthew 27:53: “They [the bodies of many holy people] came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection . . .”
Also in the incident in Matt. 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20 in which a group of Sauducees–who didn’t believe in a resurrection of the body–ask Jesus a rhetorical question in order to make the idea of bodily resurrection look foolish, *anastasis* is the word used.
Pax.
Lee.
So your “guess” is nothing but speculation here Gary, and not even an infomed speculation. You just keep throwing darts at the board hoping that you’ll eventually hit something, only that isn’t how NT studies work.
Pax.
Lee.
Do you know what happened to Amelia Earhardt? Jimmy Hoffa?
No, you don’t. So when someone asks you what you think happened to these people, you…SPECULATE! You don’t need evidence to speculate.
That is exactly what I am doing regarding the empty tomb of Jesus and the stories about people receiving appearances from this dead man. I am SPECULATING as to what might have caused these odd events.
You don’t need evidence to speculate. My god you guys are dense (or brainwashed).
For the love of Zeus, Gary, shut up.
The author of Luke-Acts speaks of the RESURRECTION (i.e. anastasis) in numerous places: Acts 1:22; 2:24; 2:31-32; 4:2; 4:33. All these are in a similar vein to 3:15 and 5:30, where Peter says God “raised” Jesus from the dead, but uses the verb “egeiro.”
Therefore, egeiro and anastasis are not speaking of two different things. At the “resurrection,” people will be “raised” from the dead.
Just drop this absurd argument. It doesn’t fly. Just please stop.
Acts is not the Synoptics.
If you read the Gospel of Mark, the author indicates that it was God who raised Jesus from the dead. By the time you get to John, Jesus is raising himself from the dead. This shows a progression in the concept of what happened to Jesus. This is evidence that the earliest view of Jesus was not “resurrection” but “raising back to life”, just as what allegedly happened to Lazarus.
I believe that the earliest Christians, at first, thought God had raised Jesus from the dead to fulfill his mission as Messiah. When he never showed up to fulfill his mission, cognitive dissonance set in and someone came up with the idea of “resurrection”. I can’t prove it. It is just speculation. But neither can you prove that the disciples immediately assumed Jesus had been resurrected and not just raised from the dead.
We are both SPECULATING!
Acts is written by an Synoptic Gospel writer.
Of the 68 chapters in the Synoptics (Mark-16, Matthew-28, Luke-24) only 3 chapters even are about the resurrection. Your question is disingenuous and you know it.
The fact is that in Acts, Luke uses egeiro and anastais interchangeably. Your argument is just wrong.
Please, stop wasting everyone’s time.
Gary, there’s speculation, and then there’s speculation based upon careful, critical thinking based upon an actual familiarity with the source material. Your comments regarding rising and resurrection signifying two different events is proof that you don’t really understand the source material enough to make an informed spsculation.
For example, if I said Amelia Earhardt and her navigator Fred Noonan were abducted by aliens and taken to the Delta Quadrant, or that she and Noonan had to ditch the Electra when it ran out of fuel and drowned, or even that, based upon eyewitness testimony, after they ditched the plane in the Marshall Islands they were captured by the Japanese and later executed as American spies, which of these “speculations” is more probable, the first one, or the last two? Several serious books and documentaries have been written examining the last two secnarios in the past fifty years, but none that posit an abduction by aliens.
Pax.
Lee.
Does the author of Luke/Acts use “anastasis” in Luke? That is the issue. Acts was written one or more decades after the Gospel of Luke, giving the author time to modify his views on what happened to Jesus.
More importantly, does the author of the first Gospel, Mark, ever us the word “anastasis” when talking about what happened to Jesus? I don’t think so, but if so, please provide the passage, and I will be happy to concede the point.
No, you have ZERO evidence that Acts was written 10 years after Luke.
Again, your question is misleading and disingenuous. The Synoptics hardly talk about the resurrection at all–one chapter at the end of each Gospel.
The fact is (and if you actually knew Greek, you’d know this) it that although egeiro can be a general verb “to raise up,” is also is consistently used as a synonym for “to resurrect” or “resurrection.” Therefore, you’re argument is wrong and misleading from the start. I may sound impressive to the uneducated in Greek, but to anyone who is knowledgeable, it is ludicrous.
What part of “Please, just stop” don’t you understand?
Excerpt from Outreach Judaism: [W]hen various individuals witness a traffic accident and then attempt to clearly transmit the information they saw, errors will be made. This is what we expect from imperfect humans!
The Church, however, does not make this claim. Its authors and those who promoted the Christian religion claim that its content was divinely inspired, i.e. every word is from God! Christendom insists that the authors of the Christian Bible were inspired by the Holy Ghost. With this assertion, we must hold the Gospels to an entirely different standard of accuracy – that of perfection. Well over a half century passed from the time that Paul wrote his first letters until the last words of the Book of Revelations were penned. Moreover, these books were written from one end of the Roman Empire to the other. Thus, if we are to assume they were written by mere mortals, without Heavenly inspiration, mistakes and inconsistencies are expected. God, however, is inerrant.
There is another significant difference between conflicting accounts of a traffic accident and contradictory stories of the resurrection narratives. The testimonies of a traffic accident are believable because they are likely to have occurred, and make sense in our world. The resurrection story, on the other hand, is a biological and scientific impossibility. Thus, the only reason for believing the numerous fantastic claims of miraculous occurrences in the New Testament – defying all natural laws – is the believer’s total reliance on the credibility of the divine author. Since the stunning contradictions clearly establish the human origins of the resurrection stories, we can no more accept their testimony than we can that of the Book of Mormon. Moreover, the resurrection story is a self-serving rationalization to account for a messianic failure.
I know that many frantic attempts have been made to explain away some of the countless inconsistencies that exist in the four canonical Gospels. These answers, however, are so plainly contrived that even a perfunctory examination of these rationalizations cast serious doubt on the claim that they were divinely inspired. God doesn’t suffer from human fallibility and certainly wouldn’t present such a garbled account of what Christians consider the most crucial event in world history.
Best regards for a happy Passover.
Very truly yours,
Rabbi Tovia Singer
Yes, I know: “He’s a fundamentalist!”
No, YOU are delusional!
Please ban me from your blog. Your incredulity is just too much for me to remain silent by choice.
Again Gary, for the umpeenth time, just stop. Neither you nor Rabbi Singer have a clue as to what that actual Christian understanding of inspiration. You are criticizing the 20th century Fundamentalist take of the Bible, not the traditional understanding of inspiration.
You are just wrong, again and again. Please stop, for your own good.
Gary, it’s just “speculation” that Acts was written late. Regardless, the date doesn’t matter because *egeiro* and *anastasis,* when used to describe what happens to a dead body, refer to the same thing.
Besides whicn, in Acts 2:32, Peter plainly says: “This Jesus GOD RAISED UP . . .” As does Romans 10:9. Paul wrote Romans before Luke wrote Acts and before the synoptics or John. In several passages Paul says God raisecd up Jesus. So using your logic we have an early author–Paul–claiming God raised up Jesus, and a late author–Luke–claiming God raised up Jesus.
So where on Earth do you get this crazy idea that John has Jesus raising himself? More speculation?
Pax.
Lee.
John 2:19-21.
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
If you read the Gospel of Mark, no where does Jesus say that he will raise up the “temple”. The author of John has added this statement. He has added it because he has a higher Christology than the author of Mark. The author of Mark states that Jesus “was raised (by God)”, the author of John has Jesus stating that he will raise himself up from the grave.
I’m sure you and Joel will have some spin as to why we shouldn’t believe the author of John meant to say what he clearly said, but any non-biased person can see that the author of John believed that Jesus raised himself from the dead (because he is God).
The MASSIVE differences between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John are not due to a difference of points of view or “themes”. The massive differences exist because somebody (or all of them) were inventing fictional material for evangelism (propaganda) purposes.
Wake up, guys.
Gospel of Mark:
As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” 2 Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” 5 Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray.
This passage has nothing to do with the resurrection. It has to do with Jesus prophesying that the Temple would be destroyed, which it was in AD 70.
By the sandal of Hermes, Gary, you need help. You just keep going.
What does this have to do with the fact that “to raise up” is simply used as a synonym to “to resurrect”?
Your assessment of John is sophomoric to boot.
By the way: “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.'” (Mar 14:58 ESV) So yes, Mark DOES have this–he just includes this item in the night trial in the Sanhedrin. So to RECAP: John reports Jesus saying that when he trashed the Temple, whereas Mark reports that during the night trial, this was an accusation that was leveled against Jesus–that he had said that.
I’m dropping my mic.
Wow. So you admit that the authors were shifting the facts.
And you think these books are historically reliable??? Give me a break.
Gary the “goalpost shifter”! Hahaha…I admit that both Mark and John agree that Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and I’ll raise it up in three days.” So yes, two different sources verifying what Jesus said. YES…that is historically reliable!
Care to admit that you were wrong when you said Mark never claimed Jesus said that?
Oh…and put the goal posts back where they belong, then go hit the showers…you’ve been benched. lol
Mark 16:
Some stood up and gave false testimony against him, saying, 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” 59 But even on this point their testimony did not agree.
John says Jesus said it. Mark says that it was a FALSE accusation against Jesus. Mark NEVER quotes Jesus as saying that he would “raise up the temple”
These books are NOT historically reliable. You believe they are only because your perceive the presence of this dead man living in your “heart”!
Please go away.
Gary, you’re taking one passage in John 2 and applying a wooden literal interpretation to prove a tortured point. Again, such tactics do nothing but make you look desperate. Dozens of other passages in the NT (Paul, Acts, I Peter, etc.) say that God raised Jesus.
Pax.
Lee.
Moderate and liberal Muslims say the same thing about contradictory passages in the Koran!
Spin. Spin. Spin.
Gary, it doesn’t matter which specific word Mark uses! The point is that there’s NO DEAD BODY in the tomb. That, taken with the phrase “he has been raised,” more than suggests an anastasis has taken place.
Pax.
Lee.
I admire Gary’s persistence here. I note too your way of dealing with those who challenge you. Everyone else, from Ehrman, Carrier and other knowledgeable atheists to every evangelical whoever lived, is silly, petty, childish, fundamentalist and dishonest. They just don’t understand what the bible is really saying. If only they were as intellectual and spiritually enlightened as you!
Bad arguments are bad arguments, often based on untrue caricatures of what is actually in the Bible.
Sorry, when Richard Carrier claims that Matthew said a outer space alien opened Jesus’ tomb with a laser ray, or that Paul claimed there is a giant sperm bank in heaven, I’m going to laugh at him and call him silly.
And yes, Ehrman reads the Bible with the same fundamentalist mindset of wooden literalism.
Gary wants you to ban him so he can say, “look another one banned me.” It is a point of pride with some people. I just don’t understand why you feed the troll
No, he’s free to read. He can’t comment.
I have read Gary’s comments and I think he makes the strongest possible case against the historical reliability of the Gospels and a naturalist explanation for the start of Christianity. However, I find this encouraging because I do not find his arguments very persuasive. To start with, rather than use “conjecture” as he does, I would say “reasoning historically”. As Joel mentions, Gary does a good slight of hand. This is to say “yes, the Bible is historically accurate here, here and here (the most important facts see William Lane Craig’s minimal facts argument for the resurrection), but because the Gospel writers use literary devices typical in the Greco-Roman tradition of the 1st century for evangelical purposes (please see the recent excellent work on this matter by Mike Licona) then the Gospels are unreliable”. His logic is the same as Bart Erhman’s logic, which is fundamentalist, thought somewhat nuanced. That is, because there are some parts of the Gospels that don’t meet the modern understanding of history (i.e. literary devices that allow authors *some* (some being the key phrase here) flexibility to add or modify elements for rhetorical or evangelical purposes), then we should assume that all the stories in the Gospels (Jesus appearing to his disciples after his resurrection, Jesus walking on water, Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday) are unreliable because they authors weren’t recording history they were reporting for evangelical or proselytizing purposes. This is a logical fallacy. It is a false dichotomy. The obvious answer, which escapes Gary because he assumes methodological naturalism (therefore miracles can’t happen), is that it is both and. The authors were not free to change or add things which contradicted or modified the essential parts (again see Mike Licona’s work) of the narrative. This being Jesus’s earthly ministry of wonder working, his predictions about his death and resurrection, his death, his empty tomb and his post resurrection appearances. These are essential facts which must be respected.
The Bible does not need to inerrant (in the modern sense) to be reliable. Gary wants Christians to hold a literalist view of the Gospels because then he can easily knock it down. A view that takes into consideration the literary devices of the 1st century, explains the differences in the Gospels. I find it interesting that Gary concedes the essential facts of the resurrection, Jesus was crucified, he was buried, his tomb was found empty and his disciples reported seeing him afterwards. This places him in a bind. How do you then explain this in a naturalistic sense? His explanations are ad-hoc and strained. His argument that other people believed in Jesus being resurrected without seeing him, therefore the disciples also could have believed that way. Yes, could have. That is possible, but it is not plausible or probable. The issue he misses is not that AFTER the resurrection people believed without seeing the risen Christ. The issue is why did the followers of Jesus, for example James and Peter (both martyred for their faith), believe that Jesus rose bodily. As mentioned by another commentator, NT Wright’s exhaustive work rebuts all his arguments. The explanation that they saw talking lights, is risible. Again, NT Wright covers this. Without an empty tomb and physical bodily appearances of Jesus, the followers of Jesus would simply not have believed he was bodily raised. With talking lights they might have thought he had been exalted and was at the right hand of God, but not that he was resurrected bodily. However, if you are a naturalist, then any naturalistic explanation is better than the one given by the followers of Jesus. If you believe that God exists, that he is good and loves mankind and if you believe that he wants to reveal himself to mankind, then the best explanation for the minimal facts (which Gary concedes) are the Jesus was bodily resurrected and will come again to renew all creation.
Excellent and insightful thoughts, Andrew.