Apologists argue that original witnesses to Jesus life and ministry were still alive at the time the gospels were written. They say this is important because the influence of the eyewitnesses would have served as a check on fabrications. I have previously questioned the logic of this argument in On the Lack of Debunking and Further Thoughts on the Lack of Debunking. However, after reading the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, another possibility occurs to me.
Maybe Clement's declined to cite Mark and Luke not because he did not know of them, but because he knew that they were not authetic. Maybe he did not cite them because he knew that they did not accurately reflect what he had learned from Peter and Paul. Maybe it was the influence of the original disciples that delayed the general acceptance of the gospels until they had all been gone for almost a century.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Case for the Real Jesus (9): Licona's Minimal Facts
In The Case for the Real Jesus, Mike Licona claims that the vast majority of scholars on the subject accept that Jesus's disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them. He quotes Paula Fredricksen of Boston University who he describes as "a very liberal scholar":
The gist of the “minimal fact” which Paula Fredicksen accepts is that the disciples saw “something.” There is no agreement about the number of disciples who saw this something. No agreement that the nature of the appearance was physical rather than visionary. No agreement about the location of the appearance, whether it was in Jerusalem or Galilee. No agreement about how soon the appearance took place after Jesus’ crucifixion. No agreement to an instantaneous transition from timid cowering to bold preaching. No agreement to a rapid spread of the belief. No agreement to anything in the gospel accounts other than that some unnamed disciples saw something. If the fact that somebody believed they saw something requires a supernatural explanation than we have to believe that Joseph Smith spoke with the angel Moroni and the Blessed Virgin Mary really appeared at Fatima, Lourdes, Guadalupe, Knock, and on that grilled cheese sandwich that sold on e-Bay (or was that Jesus?).
So how does Licona get from scholars agreeing that some disciples saw something to the historical resurrection as the most likely explanation? He does it by reading back into his minimal facts the details from the gospel accounts that he needs to dismiss alternative explanations. He dismisses the hallucination theory on the grounds that hallucinations don’t happen to multiple people at once. However, this assumes the factual accuracy of the appearance accounts in the gospels. He dismisses the theory that Peter had a vision and then convinced the others on the grounds that someone would have produced the body. However this assumes the accuracy of the burial accounts in the gospels and assumes that Peter’s vision took place in Jerusalem rather than Galilee. He dismisses the swoon theory (which I agree sounds silly) on the grounds that it does not comport with the details in the gospels.
Licona claims that his case is based on the minimal facts that are accepted by the majority of scholars, but in fact, he liberally supplements those facts with other details from the gospels for which he can claim no such consensus.
I know in there own terms what they saw was the raised Jesus. That’s what they say and all the historic evidence we have attests to their conviction that that’s what they saw. I’m not saying that they really did see the raised Jesus. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what they saw. But I do know as a historian that they must have seen something.(TCFTRJ p.119) While I might not accuse Licona of lying, I think he is certainly spinning things pretty vigorously.
The gist of the “minimal fact” which Paula Fredicksen accepts is that the disciples saw “something.” There is no agreement about the number of disciples who saw this something. No agreement that the nature of the appearance was physical rather than visionary. No agreement about the location of the appearance, whether it was in Jerusalem or Galilee. No agreement about how soon the appearance took place after Jesus’ crucifixion. No agreement to an instantaneous transition from timid cowering to bold preaching. No agreement to a rapid spread of the belief. No agreement to anything in the gospel accounts other than that some unnamed disciples saw something. If the fact that somebody believed they saw something requires a supernatural explanation than we have to believe that Joseph Smith spoke with the angel Moroni and the Blessed Virgin Mary really appeared at Fatima, Lourdes, Guadalupe, Knock, and on that grilled cheese sandwich that sold on e-Bay (or was that Jesus?).
So how does Licona get from scholars agreeing that some disciples saw something to the historical resurrection as the most likely explanation? He does it by reading back into his minimal facts the details from the gospel accounts that he needs to dismiss alternative explanations. He dismisses the hallucination theory on the grounds that hallucinations don’t happen to multiple people at once. However, this assumes the factual accuracy of the appearance accounts in the gospels. He dismisses the theory that Peter had a vision and then convinced the others on the grounds that someone would have produced the body. However this assumes the accuracy of the burial accounts in the gospels and assumes that Peter’s vision took place in Jerusalem rather than Galilee. He dismisses the swoon theory (which I agree sounds silly) on the grounds that it does not comport with the details in the gospels.
Licona claims that his case is based on the minimal facts that are accepted by the majority of scholars, but in fact, he liberally supplements those facts with other details from the gospels for which he can claim no such consensus.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Minimal Facts = Maximal Crap
That leads me, then, to my first major contention, namely: There are four historical facts which must be explained by any adequate historical hypothesis: Jesus’ burial; the discovery of his empty tomb; his post-mortem appearances; the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection. Now, let’s look at that first contention more closely. I want to share four facts which are widely accepted by historians today.
William Lane Craig (from his 2006 Debate with Bart Ehrman).
Is this really the way history works? Is there any intellectual legitimacy in picking out a handful of facts that support a predetermined conclusion and insisting that a conclusion be reached solely on that handful of facts? Isn’t this what crackpot conspiracy theorists do? The 911 nuts find a couple of clips that make it look like there were explosions at lower levels of the buildings. They find a couple of witnesses who report hearing explosions or report seeing flashes. Then they triumphantly claim that only their theory of a controlled demolition explains those clips and quotes. They see no need to consider the overwhelming mountain of evidence that establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Twin Towers fell because terrorist hijackers flew airplanes into the buildings.
Of course, we know that conservative Christians think that medicine works that way, too. Who can forget the carefully edited video of Terri Schiavo that seemed to show her responding to the people in her hospital room? Would any sane person think that her condition could be diagnosed solely on that video? Republican Senator Bill Frist did! After looking at the video for an hour, he declared on the Senate floor, “There just seems to be insufficient information to conclude that Terri Schiavo is [in a] persistent vegetative state.” Bill was quite right. The video did not contain the information that was available to the doctors who had examined and treated Schiavo over the fifteen years since her accident.
Real historians do history by weighing all the facts and evidence in order to reach a conclusion. Crackpots do history by cherry-picking the evidence.
William Lane Craig (from his 2006 Debate with Bart Ehrman).
Is this really the way history works? Is there any intellectual legitimacy in picking out a handful of facts that support a predetermined conclusion and insisting that a conclusion be reached solely on that handful of facts? Isn’t this what crackpot conspiracy theorists do? The 911 nuts find a couple of clips that make it look like there were explosions at lower levels of the buildings. They find a couple of witnesses who report hearing explosions or report seeing flashes. Then they triumphantly claim that only their theory of a controlled demolition explains those clips and quotes. They see no need to consider the overwhelming mountain of evidence that establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Twin Towers fell because terrorist hijackers flew airplanes into the buildings.
Of course, we know that conservative Christians think that medicine works that way, too. Who can forget the carefully edited video of Terri Schiavo that seemed to show her responding to the people in her hospital room? Would any sane person think that her condition could be diagnosed solely on that video? Republican Senator Bill Frist did! After looking at the video for an hour, he declared on the Senate floor, “There just seems to be insufficient information to conclude that Terri Schiavo is [in a] persistent vegetative state.” Bill was quite right. The video did not contain the information that was available to the doctors who had examined and treated Schiavo over the fifteen years since her accident.
Real historians do history by weighing all the facts and evidence in order to reach a conclusion. Crackpots do history by cherry-picking the evidence.
My Favorite Story About Charlton Heston
During the making of Ben Hur, the actor Stephen Boyd had some problems understanding his character Massala's motivation. The Roman Massala had once been the childhood friend of the Jewish Judah Ben Hur, but wound up being his sworn enemy. Director William Wyler suggested that Massala and Judah had been homosexual lovers as boys and that Massala wished to renew the relationship when he returned to Jerusalem as an adult. According to Wyler, Massala turned against Judah when his amorous advances were rebuffed.
Wyler never told Charlton Heston about this because Heston was so straight-laced, but if you watch the initial scenes between Heston and Boyd, you can see the lust in Boyd's eyes.
Charlton Heston (1924-2008)
Wyler never told Charlton Heston about this because Heston was so straight-laced, but if you watch the initial scenes between Heston and Boyd, you can see the lust in Boyd's eyes.
Charlton Heston (1924-2008)
Saturday, April 5, 2008
The Case for the Real Jesus (8): Clement of Rome
You may call me a cock-eyed optimist, but I have this dream that someday I am going to go look up some source that some apologist has cited and find that it actually says what the apologist claims it says and actually supports the apologist's argument. When it happens though, I'm pretty sure it won't be anything cited in any of Lee Strobel's books.
I recently decided to read the earliest known Christian writing outside the New Testament canon, the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians 1 written about 95 A.D. In part, my curiosity was piqued by Mike Licona's claim that Clement confirmed the gospel accounts of the resurrection:
My major quibble is that Clement’s letter reflects little if any familiarity with any of the four gospels. Clement quotes extensively from the letters of Paul and from the Old Testament, but only quotes two of Jesus’ sayings. These sayings are similar to ones found in the synoptic gospels, but they vary enough that it is hard to believe that he is quoting from any of the canonical texts.2 If the church tradition cited by Licona is correct and Clement was ordained by Peter himself, why doesn’t Clement quote from the gospel that was supposedly written by Peter’s secretary Mark? If Clement has so many of Paul’s letters and knew Paul personally, why doesn’t he quote from the gospel that was supposedly written by Paul’s traveling companion Luke?
More significant than the variation in the two quotes is the fact that Clement found nothing else from Jesus' life and teaching relevant to his message to the Corinthians. Clement’s purpose was to urge the Corinthians to reinstate certain church elders whom they had deposed. In his letter, he advises repentance, humility, obedience, faith, love and other Christian virtues and he illustrates his points with the Old Testament stories of Jacob and Esau, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, David, Rahab, Lot, Moses, Job, and Jonah. Yet he never uses a single story from the life of Jesus to drive home a point. He exhorts the Corinthians with admonitions from Psalms, Proverbs, and Paul’s letters, but never mentions the Sermon on the Mount or a single parable. When it comes to the resurrection, he cites the legend of the phoenix rising from the ashes but completely neglects the Passion narratives. It just seems ludicrous to cite Clement as confirming anything in the gospels when he does not demonstrate the slightest familiarity with them.
I realize that arguments from silence need to be taken with a grain of salt. The fact that an event or an earlier document is not mentioned in a particular writing does not prove that event did not take place or that the author was unaware of the earlier document. In fact, I have often criticized apologists for using similar reasoning, e.g., arguing that the traditional authorship of the gospels can be accepted because we have no record of competing claims. Nevertheless, I would challenge anyone to read Clement’s letter and explain why he includes nothing from the Gospels of Luke and Mark if in fact he was familiar with them and believed that they were authoritative eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus.
I have not read much about how scholars estimate the composition dates for the gospels, but Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians seems like pretty powerful evidence that they were not known in Rome in 95 A.D. This would in turn seem to rule out Mark and Luke as the authors of the books attributed to them.3
1 There are in fact two letters to the Corinthians attributed to Clement but scholars only believe the first one to be authentic.
2 “Be ye merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you; as ye do, so shall it be done unto you; as ye judge, so shall ye be judged; as ye are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure ye mete, with the same it shall be measured to you.” 1 Clement 13 (Similar but not identical to Matt. 6:12-15, Matt. 7:2, and Luke 6:36-38)
“Woe to that man [by whom offences come]! It were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, it were better for him that a millstone should be hung about [his neck], and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones.” 1 Clement 46 (Similar but not identical to Matt. 23:6, Matt. 26:24, Mark 9:42, and Luke 17:2)
3 I gained many valuable insights from Richard Carrier's The Formation of the New Testament Canon.
I recently decided to read the earliest known Christian writing outside the New Testament canon, the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians 1 written about 95 A.D. In part, my curiosity was piqued by Mike Licona's claim that Clement confirmed the gospel accounts of the resurrection:
In his letter to the Corinthian church, which was written in the first century, he writes: "Therefore having received orders and complete certainty caused by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and believing in the Word of God, they went with the Holy Spirit's certainty, preaching the good news that the kingdom of God is about to come." (TCFTRJ p. 117 citing 1 Clement 42:3)A minor quibble here is that Licona quotes from a translation that he and Gary Habermas made. It is not that the translation I found on line is dramatically different, it just seems like citing your own translation is like citing your own book as authority for your argument.
My major quibble is that Clement’s letter reflects little if any familiarity with any of the four gospels. Clement quotes extensively from the letters of Paul and from the Old Testament, but only quotes two of Jesus’ sayings. These sayings are similar to ones found in the synoptic gospels, but they vary enough that it is hard to believe that he is quoting from any of the canonical texts.2 If the church tradition cited by Licona is correct and Clement was ordained by Peter himself, why doesn’t Clement quote from the gospel that was supposedly written by Peter’s secretary Mark? If Clement has so many of Paul’s letters and knew Paul personally, why doesn’t he quote from the gospel that was supposedly written by Paul’s traveling companion Luke?
More significant than the variation in the two quotes is the fact that Clement found nothing else from Jesus' life and teaching relevant to his message to the Corinthians. Clement’s purpose was to urge the Corinthians to reinstate certain church elders whom they had deposed. In his letter, he advises repentance, humility, obedience, faith, love and other Christian virtues and he illustrates his points with the Old Testament stories of Jacob and Esau, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, David, Rahab, Lot, Moses, Job, and Jonah. Yet he never uses a single story from the life of Jesus to drive home a point. He exhorts the Corinthians with admonitions from Psalms, Proverbs, and Paul’s letters, but never mentions the Sermon on the Mount or a single parable. When it comes to the resurrection, he cites the legend of the phoenix rising from the ashes but completely neglects the Passion narratives. It just seems ludicrous to cite Clement as confirming anything in the gospels when he does not demonstrate the slightest familiarity with them.
I realize that arguments from silence need to be taken with a grain of salt. The fact that an event or an earlier document is not mentioned in a particular writing does not prove that event did not take place or that the author was unaware of the earlier document. In fact, I have often criticized apologists for using similar reasoning, e.g., arguing that the traditional authorship of the gospels can be accepted because we have no record of competing claims. Nevertheless, I would challenge anyone to read Clement’s letter and explain why he includes nothing from the Gospels of Luke and Mark if in fact he was familiar with them and believed that they were authoritative eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus.
I have not read much about how scholars estimate the composition dates for the gospels, but Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians seems like pretty powerful evidence that they were not known in Rome in 95 A.D. This would in turn seem to rule out Mark and Luke as the authors of the books attributed to them.3
1 There are in fact two letters to the Corinthians attributed to Clement but scholars only believe the first one to be authentic.
2 “Be ye merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you; as ye do, so shall it be done unto you; as ye judge, so shall ye be judged; as ye are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure ye mete, with the same it shall be measured to you.” 1 Clement 13 (Similar but not identical to Matt. 6:12-15, Matt. 7:2, and Luke 6:36-38)
“Woe to that man [by whom offences come]! It were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, it were better for him that a millstone should be hung about [his neck], and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones.” 1 Clement 46 (Similar but not identical to Matt. 23:6, Matt. 26:24, Mark 9:42, and Luke 17:2)
3 I gained many valuable insights from Richard Carrier's The Formation of the New Testament Canon.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Were the Evangelists Stupid?
The second earmark of authenticity for the New Testament is that it contains
all sorts of embarrassing material about the disciples; things like the unbelief
and their cowardice and their grandiosity and even their stupidity. And
then there are these hard to explain sayings of Jesus that would have been
embarrassing to his culture. Things like his attitude towards sinners and
towards women and towards legalism, and his displays of anger, and here’s the
point: if the writers of the New Testament were inclined to manipulate or
whitewash the record, surely they would have edited out this embarrassing
material, but the material is in the Bible which is simply more evidence of
their desire to be complete and to be accurate even if their own image was
tarnished in the process.Lee Strobel
Isn't it possible that the authors of the gospels understood that they were telling the story of a messiah who had the power to transform the lives of the weak and the lowly? Couldn't it be that they understood that portraying the apostles as flawed human beings prior to Jesus' death and resurrection was an integral part of the story. Isn't that why Strobel portrays himself as a immoral atheist before he began his journey of faith? Isn't it even possible that the authors would have portrayed the apostles in a worse light prior to Jesus' resurrection just so their transformation would appear even more dramatic?
It seems to me that Strobel must think that the writers of the gospels were too stupid to understand what made Jesus such a compelling figure and too stupid to tell the story in a way that conveyed the message they wanted to convey.
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