The "Everybody Knew" Defense

A couple of days ago, I discussed Mike Licona's argument that Paul did not use the words "empty tomb" when listing the resurrection appearances because everybody knew that is what he meant by "resurrection."

I recently posted the following thoughts at Scribblings from My Desk in response to an argument that the writers of the gospels did not identify themselves or their sources because everyone in their community who would have access to the gospel would have known who they were:

I believe there are plenty of examples of ancient writers who understood
the significance of identifying their sources as well as identifying themselves
as the authors of their works. We actually know this from John 21:24 where some
scribe recognized the importance of identifying the author of the gospel as a
witness to events. However, the authors never chose to identify themselves that
way.

As far as different communities being closely linked as members of one
family, that sounds like wishful thinking, too. Travel and communication were
far from simple in those days. From Paul’s letters and the letters of the
apostolic fathers, we know that there were doctrinal conflicts within and
between communities. Despite the travel difficulties, those letters did
circulate as copies were made. I cannot see why the gospel writers would not
have foreseen that their writings might wind up traveling beyond their
control.

It seems obvious (to me at least) that the gospels were written because
their authors realized that Jesus was not returning as quickly as they had
originally thought and they did not trust oral tradition to accurately preserve
the stories. It seems unreasonable to me to think that these men would have
trusted oral tradition to preserve their own identities and sources rather than
putting them in the documents. It seems more reasonable to believe that they
were collecting oral traditions that were known within their community. The
reason that they did not claim to have an apostolic source for their stories is
because their community would have known that it wasn’t true.

As far as Luke’s introduction goes, I think it supports my hypothesis. If
he could have identified particular apostles who had told him these stories, he
would have done so because he wanted to convince his readers that his story
should be trusted rather than the ones that other people were writing. Many
scholars translate “delivered” as “handed down” which would indicate that Luke
was acknowledging that he was more than once removed from the
eyewitnesses.

I would not claim that the evangelists did not themselves believe that what
they wrote was grounded in history. However, they have not left enough evidence
for us to reach any conclusions about the extent to which their beliefs were
true. They may have been careful with respect to geographic and historical
details that could be verified, but that may indicate no more than their desire
that their readers understand the context in which the stories were placed. Many
modern novelists do meticulous historical research to achieve the same purpose.