Here is Part 2 of my debate with Mike Licona on whether the Gospels are historically reliable. You won’t necessarily have to have seen Part 1 to make sense of this one; a lot of it involves penetrating questions from the audience (trying to trip us up!) which one or the other of us addressed. Enjoy!
Part 2: Please adjust gear icon for 720p High-Definition:
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Mike Licona is the author of The Resurrection of Jesus, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels and Evidence for God.
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I couldn’t listen to all of this, but I sampled. I found the individual presentations better than the table discussions, which I think got bogged down a bit.
Your lecture style is exceptionally good. I found little to disagree with there, regarding what you said, and of course you were on well-worn ground that you’ve covered in your writing, but there’s a big difference between writing something and saying it to a large audience.
You and Licona clearly agree on many things, so the discussion ended up being what you disagree about. I don’t know if he’s a fundamentalist in the strict sense–seems more like he’s trying to modernize and rationalize the traditional evangelical take on scripture, which I think we can agree is a hopeless task, though not thankless, since he’s clearly successful in his field. (He probably gets more flak from other Christians about it than he got from you.)
You tried to nail him down, and he kept wriggling off the hook, because (as you know) he can’t agree to your points without undercutting his entire position, not just as a scholar, but as a member of his religious community.
Imagine being an anthropologist or archaeologist, arguing with a member of one of the Native American religions, none of which acknowledge that their ancestors came across the Bering land bridge many thousands of years ago, in spite of overwhelming evidence to that effect.
They can’t acknowledge that, because that undercuts their entire cultural orientation, that the land is spiritually theirs (and puts them at a further disadvantage in dealing with the larger society their ancestors were unwillingly made a part of).
You can still say they have a special connection to the land, created by long familiarity, but that’s not enough for them. They want everybody to admit they were here since the dawn of creation, and the land belongs to them (or they to it), no matter what the law says. That is their truth. It’s not a lie. It’s also not a fact.
If you find the ancient preserved remains of somebody who is clearly not of their ancestry, they will claim that’s a lie, and he’s one of their people, and claim the right to bury him according to their rites. Human beliefs–theistic or otherwise–are constantly at war with our growing understanding of the facts. To give up ground is to lose it forever.
So your task was fairly hopeless as well, and I perceived some frustration in you, in response to this. He could not accede to certain of your points without surrendering ground he doesn’t feel he has any right to surrender.
That was my take, anyway. It was not a satisfying dialogue between sparring POV’s.
Dr Ehrman
Assuming scribe wrote on behalf of john :
how would we know what was johns and what was the scribes ?
if john couldnt read the finnished product, how would he know what the scribe inserted into the text ?
I”m afraid I’m not sure what you’re asking.
But matthew has jesus meet the women and jesus repeats the same words “i am going BEFORE them….”
the women tell
Now the 11….
the “now ” “moreover”
“In addition”
Would link back to the report from the women who would say
“Jesus is going before you,he told us…there you will meet him”
Matthew seems clear that they got the news and went which means that the first thing peter did was go to galilee, not come to see empty tomb.
when you say “not so clear”
Can you please explain.
Sorry — I don’t understand what you’re asking.
luke:
“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.[d] 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.
matthew :
Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
While they were going….
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them
Dr Ehrman, does the language matthew use imply that the message reached the 11 on the same day Jesus appeared to the women and told them to tell the 11?
In Luke, yes. In Matthew it’s not as clear.
Bart – Do you believe that a strong argument as to why the Gospels were written long after Jesus’ death would be because Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher whose message was proclaimed for the specific generation in which he lived? In which case, by the time the Gospels were written, Jesus was to have already come back and established God’s kingdom.
BTW – What’s glaringly missing from any of the Gospels is Jesus telling his disciples to make sure to write down his story and his message so those writings could be a witness for generations to come.
Yes, I don’t think Jesus expected the world to be around (or to need Gospels) for many years. And his followers saw no point recording his life for posterity.
Wow! what a great debate. I learned a lot. Thanks for posting the video. I do have a couple of questions. If literacy was only 3%, was Jesus literate? Did he read from the torah in the synagogue or simply quote from memory and then say that “today the scriptures have been fulfilled”? Did Jesus also read/speak Hebrew as well as Aramaic. Could Paul and Peter converse in Hebrew since Peter probably didn’t speak Greek? I do think that you and Dr. Licona were speaking at cross purposes at times and perhaps making “reliable” and “accurate” into synonyms. My personal feelings are that historical accuracy is less important than trying to get the point across. The message is more important than the details. To me it is less important in the details of the crucifixion than in the fact that Jesus was crucified. Whether there was a stone rolled over the entrance to the tomb or a stone “plug” as suggested in the BAR magazine, is not crucial to the idea that Jesus was resurrected. We sometimes get to wrapped up in the details so that we can’t see the forest for the trees. Again thanks for a great debate.
I think it’s hard to say about Jesus. I’m pretty sure he couldn’t *write* — but could he read Hebrew? I used to think the answer was definitely yes, and now I’m not so sure. Maybe I’ll post on this. Peter would have spoken Aramaic, not Hebrew; there is not firm evidence that Paul could read Hebrew or speak Aramaic.
My conclusion — and, of course, this is just my opinion — is that one of the things that impressed Jesus’ disciples the most was his knowledge of Hebrew and Hebrew scripture. Let us, for a moment, assume that the gospel accounts of Jesus’ debates with the Pharisees is accurate. When Jesus quoted scripture to the Pharisees, did he quote the LXX (Greek)? Or did he quote the Targumim (Aramaic)? Or did he quote the Hebrew? Well, if he wanted to be taken seriously by a Pharisee, he would quote the Hebrew directly. Moreover, the Pharisees themselves would certainly quote the Hebrew, because it was THE language of scriptural debate. And if Jesus didn’t understand them, that would seriously undermine his credibility.
But let us assume, instead, that Jesus never once spoke to an actual Pharisee during his mission. If Jesus had the pretense of being an actual prophet, within whom the Holy Spirit had taken purchase, in what language would he “prophesy”? Greek? Few of the people he was preaching to understood Greek. Would he prophesy in Aramaic? Possibly. But, again, what’s so impressive about that? A true sign that God is speaking through a prophet via the Holy Spirit is that the prophet is speaking the language of prophetic scripture, i.e. Hebrew. The notion that God is going to send the Holy Spirit to speak through a prophet in any other language than the holy liturgical language of the ancient Prophets, I’m sure, would have made that prophet look like a phoney. If you wanted to look like the real deal, you had to prophesy in Hebrew.
Of course, all that changed after Jesus was killed, as Luke clarifies that after his death Jesus’ disciples were able to prophesy, via the gift of the Holy Spirit, in many languages. The so-called gift of speaking in tongues. Why was is necessary for Luke to point this out? Probably because up to that point Hebrew was the only acceptable language of prophecy. But once the great commission was purportedly issued at Pentecost, it was necessary for the apostles to preach the gospel to people who wouldn’t know Hebrew from Chinese. Hence, the shift away from Hebrew prophecy to preaching in other languages, especially Greek.
So, if Aramaic was the lingua Franca of say Galilee what would have been the rate of Hebrew literacy and speech? And I guess I should clarify literate or “speaking” as more than what a kid learns today for Bar Mitsvah….
Well, it’s hard to say. Most scholars make it seem like to an Aramaic speaker Hebrew might as well be Chinese. Not the case at all. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are mutually intelligible, but if an Aramaic speaker heard Hebrew, or vice versa, they might be able to get the gyst. I know from my own experience as a Hebrew speaker, if I read something in Aramaic I can often get the gyst. For instance, “I” in Hebrew is “ani” and in Aramaic “ana”. Not a wild difference. “Heaven” in Hebrew is “sh’mayim,” in Aramaic “sh’mayin”. The prepositional prefixes are almost all the same: b- is “in,” l- is “to” or “for,” m- is “of” or “from”. And so on and so forth. An analogy I often use is that Hebrew is to Aramaic what Portuguese is to Spanish. They’re more similar than they are different.
Dear professor Ehrman, I have just read Jesus Interrupted, and well, I liked it so much I have become a member of your blog:
If as you argue, to my agnostic layman satisfaction in that book, and also in your debate with Dr. Licona (who seems a nice guy BTW) the gospels are not reliable historical accounts (even with a thin kernel of historicity), and if we consider that there is virtually no account of Jesus youth (Luke account of child Jesus debating with the doctors of the law seems an invention outright), how do we know it´s not the case that a wealthy protector, perhaps admiring his talent, funded his education so that he could read (and perhaps write) the scriptures well? I do not find that implausible. And just because he was an skilled worker and not a scholar it does not neccesarily imply he could not have enough money to pay for an education or he was not talented enough to teach himself. Perhaps he was a fine tekton and made a lot of money (for one thing the gospel of Mark does not show he had financial difficulties)
If we take that in Mark there are the most probable real words spoken by Jesus, some sayings in my opinion reveal not just an intelligent, but an educated man, as his knowledge of the scriptures and sophisticated parables show. So I think it may be a fair inference that he could read.
Please forgive me if my english it´s not very good, my native language is spanish.
All the best.
The problem I suppose would be that there weren’t any wealthy people in the small hamlet of Nazareth. If you’re interested you might see what we know about the socio-economic situation of Nazareth at the time, e.g., in the book Excavating Jesus by Jonathan Reed and John Dominic Crossan.
Thank you very much, I´ll try to find that reference, because I can´t help being intrigued how it is possible that a proletarian artisan knew the Scriptures fairly well and was so sophisticated with his metaphors and skilled as a debater with elite debaters. The question is, if we doubt many things, and using historical methods that many things as reported are not probable (or why not, fabricated outright), why we should assume that the whole “son of a carpenter from a rural redneck hinterland” could beat lettered masters in their own game? I understand your (the scholars) methods, you explain them very well and for dummies like me, but on internal evidence I find hard to believe that Jesus was that skilled and knowledgeable without an education. Either his knowledge or debating skills were invented too, or perhaps he was not so poor. The muslims say that Muhhamad was illiterate (no doubt no enhance the alleged linguistic miracle of the Quran. So, it´s really that implausible that to turn Jesus into a proletarian from a rural hinterland would enhance the spell in the market, considering than the prospective market was mostly illiterate, too?
Thank you very much.
You also have to remember that we don’t have direct access to Jesus’ words — they come to us only from Gsopels produced decades later based on oral traditoins in circulation for many many years.
The ref clearly should have stopped the fight as soon as you had him on the ropes.
I liked the audience question concerning how historians proceed when different criterion conflict with one another, and your response really helps show why there are so many conflicting viewpoints among scholars……”they’re weighing the evidence differently”.
Are there wide ranging viewpoints among like-minded scholars (i.e. critical scholars, evangelical scholars)? By this I mean, would you weight the evidence significantly different from another critical scholar?
Great debate! I can tell you guys had a great time!
Jay
Yes, on many issues — but not all!
At least Prof Licona is honest. He admits in his closing statement that he is starting from a prior faith commitment that shapes all his scholarship. But isn’t Licona forgetting something? He spends all his time trying to fit the gospels into the genre of ancient history. Aren’t they supposed to be divine revelation appropriate for all times and places? And is the Resurrection of Jesus simply a historical factoid like Columbus sailing the ocean blue in 1492 or Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg address?
Regarding your repeated use of the word ‘zombie’–perhaps a bit culturally loaded? Rhetorically effective, I will concede, but you said it a lot. Obviously nobody in that culture believed in rotting corpses hauling themselves around, looking to feed on the living (technically, the creatures in Night of the Living Dead were referred to as ‘ghouls’–never zombies–that was a word people who saw the film used, equally misinterpreting Afro-Caribbean folk religion and George Romero).
I don’t know if any early Christians literally believed the dead came out of their graves and walked around, but I would think, based on what we know of Jewish beliefs regarding resurrection, that if anyone did believe that, they believed the dead were in restored and perhaps immortal bodies, not rotting ones–which would beg the question of what happened to them. Taken up into heaven as well? They went back down into the grave, having had a nice constitutional?
If we all agree that the New Testament authors used certain language to make a point, and intentionally changed stories they’d heard, I don’t think we can assume that this was meant literally. Licona seemed to be making that point, and you kept shooting him down.
I think he was trying, much harder than the Mythicists you’ve debated (who spent much of their time attacking you online), to meet you somewhere in the middle.
What do you think?
Yes, he wants to be a critical scholar *and* to argue that the Bible is highly accurate — at the same time. As to the dead walking, I do think Matthew really thought this happened. Nothing in the text itself suggests (to me) that he was thinking metaphorically. And it’s worth noting that millions of people today *also* think it happened!
Well yes, and polls indicate a large number of people believe zombies–in the Romero/Walking Dead sense–are real.
That’s not a religious belief. People of no religion at all believe in zombies–maybe as a result of some secret government experiment that went wrong (the explanation in Night of the Walking Dead is suggested to be an alien virus). People just believe in bizarre paranormal things because they like to. Bigfoot. Nessie. UFO’s.
I would tend to agree that the things we can prove are so fascinating, we shouldn’t need to make things up. But we do anyway, and we always have, and if all organized religion, and all concept of a supreme being vanished from human consciousness forever, we still would, and it might even get worse.
You might well be right about Matthew, but the fact remains, he would not have watched a modern film about zombies and said “That’s what I meant.” And the word in its original meaning doesn’t refer to dead people at all, but people who have been given a drug by a witch doctor to make them docile. In that sense, zombies probably do exist.
People do sometimes actually rise up from graves–because they weren’t really dead, and were buried by mistake.
That has led to all kinds of stories. That like all stories, grow in the telling.
Most of my Catholic friends absolutely believe it happened–and that it was by itself proof of Christ’s divinity.
I was raised Catholic, and I don’t remember the subject ever coming up in conversation, even once. Nor did any priest ever talk about it at mass.
I’ve come across it in conversation twice.
You should have asked Licona if the stories of Mary being visited by an angel, or the shepherds seeing and hearing angels, were likewise metaphorical inventions of the Gospel authors like the raising of many saints, that were added simply to make Jesus’ miraculous birth tale seems more “earth shaking.” As in the ending, so in the beginning of such Gospels.
Also, the author of GMatthew certainly tries to make it seem like the raised saints story is historical based on how he rewrites the reactions of the Centurion and the guards.
The earlier Gospel, GMark, says: “And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, Surely this man was the Son of God! (NIV)”
But GMatthew says: “When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened [the opening of tombs and raising of many saints] they were terrified, and exclaimed, ‘Surely he was the Son of God!'” (NIV)
So GMatthew depicts the centurion along with those with him all “seeing” the “earthquake and all that had happened” (apparently including the earthquake, graves being opened and many saints being raised) and “they were terrified.”
GMark depicts no terror, only a lone centurion standing “there in front of Jesus,” reacting to “his cry” and seeing “how he died.”
GMatthew has the centurion “and those with him” exclaiming seemingly together, “Surely he was the Son of God,” i.e., “seeing all that had happened” around them, and reacting in “terror.” That’s not the GMark story.
But when Paul went to preach to Athens (if we believe the account of Acts) when he talked about the resurrection the athenians laughed at him as you know very well. Why are we so sure all the people back then (and specially educated people, as the authors of the gospel were) could not be skeptical regarding miracles in general, specially the kind of miracles recorded in the alleged oral traditions and recorded in the gospels? After all, miracles do not occur. It is implausible that an educated greek speaking writer had a command of greek philosophic materialist doctrines (for example, Epicurus)?
I do not find implausible that the “zombies” history was some kind of allegorical tale.
I would say there was a huge educational/world view difference between philosophically highly trained Stoic philosophers in Athens (not even Paul was close to their league) and the author of Matthew. But even so, if we want to think Matthew meant the passage allegorically, why not think Matthew thought that all the accounts of Jesus’ miracles, and his resurrection, were also allegorical? Mike Licona definitely does not want to go there!
Well Licona is a trained apologist, and even he seems nice it´s quite funny when he struggles not to concede you some points outright (We all have to make a living). Nevertheless, I think he was implying (he can not speak too frankly) that this is a matter of degree. Psychosomathic healings are perhaps possible, and curing the blind and lame could have been staged, but that passage is too much even for a christian apologist. Did the jews really believe that Jonas survived three days in the belly of the fish? At least the elite? Furthermore, in JI you quote Ireneus saying that Papias was essentially a simpleton (he took literally things not mean to be taken so), so, it is possible that at least the elite and educated christians did not believe in miracles literally, and that perhaps they thought that was good for the plebs, so to speak.
Apart from a few actual atheists (very few indeed) and Epicureans, my sense is that most people in antiquity did believe in literal miracles.
His analogy “Mark and Luke are the literal translation and Matthew is the NIV version” seems to be discounting that each narrative presents it’s own Jesus and ultimately it’s own agenda by “artistic license” which is less like faithful translations and more like fan fiction from three different authors using similar sources about a true event. About whom there has been a plethora of fan fiction (both then and now and in the in-between). This plethora was verified by the watchful eye of El Guapo.
I have to admit that I was disappointed by the debate. His arguments were weak but his personal belief in them strong, which hurts his credibility, at least to me.
I thought an interesting retort to Licona’s point that there is some support for miracles because “you [Bart] debate groups who think Jesus never lived and you can’t convert them”. Or something like that…… I immediately thought “but that is not a miracle”…. The existence of a human being is not a miracle.. If he did not exist, that is not a miracle… It may prove AGAIN that people “believe” in myths…. And how is that a miracle? My point is, his arguments were sometime, well, silly…..
Are the gospels biographies? Especially since they are not necessarily about him personally, or his life outside his ministry, and focus solely on his teachings, their meanings and the religious significance of what he did during his ministry. And if they are not biographies then the historical accuracy argument becomes secondary to genre placement and the writer’s intent (which may be inferred if properly placed in the right genre). Fundamentalists will probably ALWAYS require the gospels to be historically accurate and absolutely inerrant because of the theology that has already been established on that premise.
They certainly aren’t like *modern* biographies! But yes, in terms of genre, they are most like *ancient* biographies, which were always *meant* to be accurate, even if they often were not.
I’m always a bit bemused about how Plutarch seriously discusses whether Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf as babies.
I don’t think he believes it, but he won’t dismiss it out of hand.
And fed by a hummingbird!!
We shouldn’t feel too superior–going back to the zombie thing, I found a YouGov poll that says 15% of Americans think it’s possible the dead might actually rise and start attacking people.
And most of them, asked how it might happen, give what they clearly believe to be scientific reasons. Pretty sure the ones who say “Because when hell has no more room the dead will rise” are kidding, but they are a very small percentage of that 15%. NOBODY cites Matthew, or any other book of the New Testament.
Okay, we can stop talking about zombies now. 😉
I hope your standard poodle is doing okay! If it is not, accept my condolences. As I put down more and more of my pets (2 this month!), I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a service and a very humane thing to do when the suffering is to such a high extent that it cannot be fixed or relieved. All the best!
Sorry to hear about your pets. Billy is doing well just now, but he has an aggressive bladder cancer and we don’t know how much longer he will be relatively pain-free.
Thank you.
Wow, you catch him in one bs after another. lol As a total amateur I found the back and forth question/answer most interesting because you can literally catch him red handed in his blatantly flawed logic.
Is “compression” a valid historical method? I think I understand what Licona means by the term but I’m unsure if it is a valid point. How do you recognize compression within Luke’s story or is Luke’s story compressed because it is different from the others? It just sounds like an apologetic ploy to me but I am curious if it is valid.
It’s not one that I’m familiar with scholars ever using, but I don’t see anything wrong with it per se. It’s another way of saying that the text cannot be literally correct because of its use of a literary technique.
It’s painful really to hear and watch Christian apologists spout some rather illogical and twisted justifications for what amounts to a denial of reality. However, I didn’t realize until this morning that there is quite a personal backstory to the zombie resurrection claims of Matthew that you zeroed-in with Professor Licona. Now I know that the palpable anguish that Licona demonstrated on-camera flows from a personally discomfiting experience for Dr. Licona. I almost feel sorry for him now knowing the following (which I have retyped from David Fitzgerald’s Jesus: Mything in Action):
In his 2010 book, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, Licona briefly questioned the historical reality of this unique incident that immediately follows Jesus’ death on the cross–an event found nowhere else but in Matthew’s gospel:
“… and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” (Matt. 27:52-53).
Many Jewish saints arose the dead, came of their graves, walked into the streets of Jerusalem and appeared to many. What’s not to believe? Despite being a specialist in defending the resurrection, a mass grave exodus of reanimated saints strolling down downtown Jerusalem–completely unnoticed by anyone else in history–was just a little too hard for even Licona to accept. So he made the modest suggestion that this ‘strange little text,’ as he called it, might–might–only be metaphorical apocalyptic imagery.
Naturally, such blasphemy triggered a paroxysm of outrage from fellow evangelical apologists like Norman Geisler, who accused Licona of denying the full inerrancy of Scripture and insisted that he should recant a view that was “unorthodox, non-evangelical, and a dangerous precedent for the rest of evangelicalism.” The president of Louisville, Kentucky’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler, praised Licona’s book as a masterful defense of the historicity of the resurrection; yet spent most of his review criticizing what he called Licona’s “shocking and disastrous” questioning of Matthew’s mass resurrection.
At least two Southern Baptist entities, including the New Orleans seminary and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, rescinded invitations for Licona to speak at their apologetics conferences. And a year later in 2011, Licona resigned from both as a research professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary and as the apologetics coordinator for the North American Mission Board. Licona said he offered to resign rather than cast a shadow over the mission board and its president, and the NAMB swiftly eliminated Licona’s position.
…
In Christianity Today, New Testament professor Craig Blomberg complained of “the tragedy of ‘witch hunts’ of this nature” and accused Licona’s critics of “going after fellow inerrantists with whom they disagree and making life miserable for them for a long time in ways that are unnecessary, inappropriate, and counterproductive to the important issues of the Kingdom.”
Now I realize that your seemingly milquetoast advice to the audience at this event to learn to think for themselves and do a little wider reading and questioning about the basis of their various worldly beliefs is far more radical advice than I first imagined. It’s downright incendiary talk. I hope you started or enouraged at least a few on to the path of some critical thinking.
Thanks for finding this. I had a very strong feeling Licona was getting it much worse from his corner than he was from Bart’s. I really did feel for the man, because he was clearly trying to find middle ground, and that’s a noble aspiration. It just may not be possible with regards to fundamentalism. (including atheist fundamentalism, which Bart has also encountered, whether he calls it that or not).
Fundamentalism is not all religion. It’s not most religion. And it’s not open much to compromise. Clarence Darrow, grilling William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Trial, asked him if he really believed the Deluge destroyed all life except what was on the Ark. “I believe the fish may have lived,” he replied.
From his perspective, a major concession.
Very enjoyable! But I wish you’d challenged him on the “evidence” Jesus rose from the dead.
If you just analyzed the debate from presentation alone and ignored the content, Bart comes off as someone who knows the content inside/out like the back of his hand and is speaking from the heart. Mike comes off like he is reading a carefully prepared set of thoughts straight from the paper, as if to making sure he will not make a mistake.
Nice work with the plug for the blog at the end.
Now that I know to read horizontally and let each author tell the story from his own perspective, it’s easier to compare historic events. Where there is obvious contradiction, we don’t have a reliable account of how an event unfolded in history. That does not mean it lacks spiritual truth.
Dr. Ehrman, I thought both you and Dr. Licona made some good points, with the debate simply boiling down to what degree of accuracy is acceptable in determining historicity. For Dr. Licona, the Gospels are “accurate enough” and he allows for more speculation (maybe the disciples had scribes) while you want more specificity and proof. At times it seemed you were both talking past each other, not really debating the same thing because you each have different agendas. Dr. Licona is looking for enough accuracy to support his faith (his example being his everyday watch was plenty accurate for his needs, but not NASA’s), while you are looking for pure history, i.e. NASA’s needs. An example might be your assertion that each gospel writer had something different to say, while he asserted they differed in style and degree of accuracy. Would you agree with my analysis of your debate? As an aside, what did you think of Dr. Licona’s assertion that Mark presents Jesus as God, but not through Jesus’s words but rather through His deeds? I thought that was an interesting point.
The question is: accurate enough for *what*? My view is that they are inaccurate in very big things indeed (e.g., the question of whether Jesus called himself divine). But yes, I do think Mark’s Gospel understands Jesus as divine in *some sense*.
I found this debate to be frustrating because Licona’s definition for reliable is different from what it actually means. Something that’s reliable means it can be trusted. He was turning it around and saying that the Gospels are generally telling the same story. Of course they are or else more Christians would be able to see its discrepancies. But do the Gospels give us a truthful depiction of what really happened? No way.
I’m not even sure what Matthew’s point was with the walking dead story because he says the saints came back to life when Jesus died but came out of their tombs when he was resurrected. What were these saints doing in between the time of coming back to life and Jesus’ resurrection? Hanging out in the tombs waiting?
I would believe it would be a bit of Jewish apocalypticism peeking it’s head out?
Licona would say yes
A question that may as well go here, since it deals with things in the Gospels! I’ve been rereading some of your books, and I forget where I read this.
You made a list of all the things most scholars agree took place leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion. As two separate items, you mentioned the Romans’ wanting to apprehend Jesus because they considered him dangerous, and Judas’s “betraying” him.
Do you still believe the Romans had been planning to arrest him before Judas brought him to their attention? I would have guessed otherwise.
Yes, I don’t think Judas is the one who told them that Jesus was someone to be concerned about.
I thought you believed Judas betrayed Jesus and turned him over to the authorities.
Yes, I do.
Apropos, a JW knocked on our door today so I decided to engage with him (which I don’t usually). I asked him my usual first Q. – who was the father of Jesus? A: God. How come Jesus is the Messiah as well if he had to come from the line of David through his father? A: Joseph was his adoptive father. Next – why are the nativity narratives contradictory? A: they are not. Did the family flee to Egypt? A: yes. I grabbed my Bible and read Luke. But they went straight back to Galilee. A: ah but they went to Egypt afterwards. Where does it say that? A: it doesn’t have to because it has already been stated in Matthew. Etc etc etc. It was like wrestling an eel (I imagine, never having done such a thing).
A question for you though, Bart, out of all this. The JW said that Jesus was not crucified, which took me back a bit. How so? said I. The Greek word used is ‘Storos’ which means ‘Impale’ he said. Is that true? And, if so, could it mean something other than death by crucifixion? Thanks.
No, not true. (It’s “stauros”, btw).
Very cool debate. If any of the members of this blog are interested, I just finished my Easter blog post about what kind of source the Pre-Pauline Corinthian Creed/Poetry is for the resurrection appearances of Jesus. My blog post looks at the account of the resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Pre-Pauline Corinthian Creed/Poetry from religious and secular perspectives. Check it out: http://palpatinesway.blogspot.com/2018/03/examining-easter-peering-behind-veil-of.html
I’m not really comfortable with this blog used as a pitch for the blogs of others. . .
I’m glad you both had fun, and I did enjoy watching it, but these videos often frustrate me. I seem to cherish the idea of earning a Ph.D. more than many of the people you debate, and this is again one of them. You didn’t have to prepare much for this one (excepting of course the decades you had ALREADY spent in preparation), as I didn’t see you get any deeper than your undergraduate text book. I get frustrated when people actually try to claim things like ‘a majority of critical scholars think the apostles wrote the gospels’. I was waiting for you to ask him to give names. . .
What do you feel your biggest gain out of doing these debates? Have you ever been truly frustrated during a debate and if so how did control it? You seemed a bit perplexed during the questioning when he admitted to instances of mistakes but still wouldn’t give that the Bible might not actually have mistakes, but that’s not the level of frustration that I feel.
Yes, I’m usually horribly frustrated during these debates — which is why I often vow not to do them again. I do them because I think in the long run they may do some good, at least for three or four people who are there, who might have their minds opened up.
I am grateful you take the time to do these debates. Your books, lectures, and debates have made a profound difference in my life. Thank you.
For what it’s worth your scholarship has changed my life, with the debates being an interesting diversion. I was interested in comparative religions when in college, but had no real outlet for it. If I had been able to read your books in the 80’s I would have gone in that direction and would not have attended where I did, or ended up in the Army. Alas, I also wasn’t academically ready for you back then anyway so you might have simply scared me away. But again, thanks.
I find the debates that you do, when they are with a very knowledgable but also clearly honest opponent like Dr Licona, to be incredibly stimulating. What was said by both of you made me think (and I’ve already read your books). I’m sure a great many more people than three or four would be affected, since the debate is online and will no doubt be watched by many thousands in time!
And of course the more debates you do the more powerful you become 🙂
I hope you continue to do many more in the future.
This is a bit confusing. Here you are arguing that the gospels are not historically reliable but elsewhere you are treating yourself gospels as historically reliable to proof for example that Jesus wasn’t Essenes because he did incompatible acts in the Bible. How can we know that those parts in gospels are reliable? Maybe the gospel writes just invented those stories to loose the rules.
That’s the entire task of scholarship — on the Bible or any other historical source — figuring out *what* is reliable and what is not. See my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, where I discuss the matter at length.
To be more price, I understood that you have said earlier that Jesus couldn’t be Essenes because he was friends for example with tax collectors like Zacchaeus (Sakkai) and in this debate you were arguing that the story about Jesus and Zacchaeus (Sakkai) is not historically reliable because it relies on twist in Greek language that Jesus didn’t speak. Sounds like double standard to me 😉
By the way, I just read the community rule and based on it seems that Essenes held views on afterlife like immortality of the soul, eternal bliss or torment or purgatory after death around 100 years before the birth of Jesus. Views that that are absent in New and Old Testament. Views that Christians developed around 100 years after Jesus death. Will cover these views in your next book?
I don’t recall ever saying that about Jesus not being an Essene because he was friends with Zacchaeus, or that his conversation with Zacchaeus wasn’t historical because of twist int he Greek. I think you’re possibly confusing a few things I said?
Yes, you are right. I did mix Zacharias and Nicodemus. Sorry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTw8sGfuMOs&feature=youtu.be&t=57m
And there’s your blog about “Was Jesus an Essenes”…
“[Jesus] was roundly accused and slandered for being friends with the lowlifes, the tax collectors (notorious sinners) and prostitutes.”
https://ehrmanblog.org/was-jesus-an-essene-for-members/
What I’m pondering is …
On the one hand, how can we be sure that Jesus was fiends with tax collectors and prostitutes is a historical fact? On the other hand, Essenes would have considered everyone living outside their community as sinner anyhow. Hence, maybe it was true.
And there are more interesting details…
Even in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus’ family thinks “He is out of his mind” by doing whatever he is doing even when he is not claiming of being the God.
In the story on Good Samaritan, Jesus is criticising a Priest and a Levite, that where the two top ranks in the Essenes community.
Etc.
Could Gospels be seen as propaganda against Jesus’ family, disciples and community, the Essenes? That all were waiting for a quite different kind of a Messiah.
Right — I wasn’t specifying Zacharias in particular. I’m not sure that it’s a *fact* that Jesus associated with those seen as standing on the margins of religious society, but since it doesn’t seem to be a tradition Xns would be proud of, it’s usually taken to be accurate. As you probably know, the Essenes are never mentioned in the NT, so it seems a bit unlikely they would be the object of any direct polemic.
Neither do the dead sea scrolls mention Essenes by that name. Still the consensus is that Community Rule was written for Essenes. Christians were first called Christian in Antioch after Jesus death according to Acts. Still the consensus is that Jesus was teaching Christians. Aren’t these both names invented by the latter generations?
One theory is that NT is not identifying Essenes as separate Jewish sect because Christians and Essenes were parts of the same sect. I think there are enough similarities between them to think so. There are differences but the same has been true between various Christian groups through out the history.
Anyhow, what should we find in the NT to say that it refers to Essenes? Can you tell from the below text which one refers to Christian and which one to Essenes?
“for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness”
“love all the sons of light, each according to his lot in God’s design, and hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt in God’s vengeance”
Sorry, I”m not sure what you’re asking. Yes, some sayings can be acceptable to both (certain) Essenes and (certain) early CHristians. But what is your ultimate question?
Why would and should NT writers have distinguished Jesus’ followers from Essenes? What would have been the dividing doctrine?
Both groups could have easily been qualified under the banner of Christians interpret as followers of the Messiah waiting for the future Kingdom of God to come.
Philo’s Account of the Essenes tells that “their main rule and maxim being a threefold one: love of God, love of manhood (self-control), and love of man.“ Isn’t that very similar with the Jesus’ Great Commandment?
Not all the Essenes lived in the wilderness as ascetic monks as many lived also in the rural villages based on Philo and Josephus. Essenes needed also a constant influx of new proselytes. Couldn’t that have been Jesus’ role?
Even if Gospels are not historically reliable, sometimes they make more sense by presupposing Essenes doctrines, I think.
Was it Jesus probably wasn’t an Essene because he wasn’t into social isolation in order to maintain his ritual purity?
YEs, that’s one of the main reasons.
Are there any Gospel stories explicitly denoted as parables which actually might be mostly historical (not just the setting), or better, stories intended by the originator to be a teaching parable but the denotation was lost after a few decades of oral tradition prior to recording and/or incorrectly omitted by the copyist, thus leading to a false and superstitious literalism that carried forward?
STrictly speaking parables are never historical accounts, but simple stories about the sorts of things that typically happen (a farmer sowing seed; a recalcitrant son who comes home in repentance; a sheep that gets lost).
There was a claim made that I was interested in. You said at one point the Gospels were written in highly literate Greek, and that therefore Aramaic speaking day laborer’s couldn’t have written them. I know that Luke and Matthew, and John especially, are written in advanced Greek, but I was under the impression that Mark’s Greek was actually pretty rusty and that he makes a number of grammatical errors which Matthew and Luke corrected. Could Mark have been written by someone who knew Greek and used an amanuensis? I don’t see how Mark would fall under the “highly literate Greek author” point.
Mark’s Greek is not highly literary (either are the others, actually), but it’s completely coherent. That would have made Mark one of the top 1-3% (I suppose) in terms of education in the empire.
I also had a question just regarding the term ‘historically reliable.’ It comes up all the time and I just think it’s the most slippery and vague term there is. I don’t know what Licona thinks, and I don’t know if he has a blog I could ask him, but I was wondering what you think. What ancient sources do we have that in your opinion are historically reliable? Is someone like Julius Caesar or Tacitus reliable? Or does the fact that they surely embellish and make things up mean that they don’t count as historically reliable? If they are reliable, why could the same rule not apply to the Gospels, if they are not, then does any written source from the ancient world count as historically reliable? Sorry for the long question, I’d appreciate if you took a crack at it though. Thanks.
Yes, I would say Julius Caesar and Tacitus are both *far* more reliable than the Gospels — by which I mean that they have far fewer stories that are significantly embellished or even made up.
Licona argues that ancient writing norms allowed the author to tweak the story, but this should be very unsettling for Christians who care about doctrine. We can’t know when the author was using his artistic license. Doctrines have been meticulously crafted and fine-tuned from the precise words that God purportedly inspired the authors to write down. But if the authors have the artistic freedom to use their sources loosely and imprecisely, then one cannot hold confidently to their foundational doctrines. Is God really a Trinity? Is predestination true? Do we really need to be saved from hell? Is homosexuality really a sin? Can we rely on the Bible to give us these answers?
Would you agree that without inerrancy, conservative Christianity is on shaky ground?
Yup, pretty much.
There were a few things I didn’t understand about Licona’s points. For one, Licona brought up Jesus’ rejection by his family as embarrassing. But Mark specifically relates this to the theological point that a prophet is without honor in his hometown and among his family. Also, Licona concludes from the fact that there were reliable historians in antiquity, that the gospel writers were just as reliable as these historians. But there were also terrible historians in antiquity. Seneca went so far as to call all historians liars. Who is to say the gospel writers weren’t terrible historians?
That was great to listen to. You did an excellent job Prof. Ehrman. Dr. Licona was convincing enough if I put myself in the shoes of a believing Christian. However, his insistence that the gospels are eyewitness accounts falls apart when looked at even a little bit closely. For example the idea that Mark is a direct account of what Peter had told Mark. According to Mark, all foods have been made lawful. This is awfully strange because according to Paul’s eyewitness testimony in Galatians, Peter clearly didn’t know about this!
People forget that when Matthew, Mark, Luke, John wrote their gospels, they never expected or imagined that one day their own book would be compiled back to back with other gospels. Each of these authors wrote their own versions based on their own ideas of Jesus and didn’t expect or intend for their gospels to be combined with any other gospel.
Here’s a question. Knowing that Acts was written by the same author as Luke, and knowing that Acts is a very historically unreliable account (at times plain dishonest), is it fair to say that his gospel should also be considered very unreliable? I imagine he took the same kind of liberties with his sources as he did with Acts.
Yes, I’d say it cuts both ways: Luke is not what we would call a highly accurate historian, about either Jesus or his apostles.
Several people on various social media have said the definition for historical reliability needs to be made clear. I’m not sure if they skipped that part of the debate or if they mean the term should have been defined beforehand. Both of you did state what you thought it meant.
Licona said historical reliability has 6 criteria: the author’s intention to write an accurate account, only a small percentage of details reported by the author is false (minor geographical and chronological errors), author was capable to report accurately (eyewitnesses were available; ex. Peter was Mark’s source), the author used good judgment, the author used good judgment in his use of the sources, and numerous items can be verified (common names and places). He said historical reliability was an accurate gist or faithful representation.
Bart—needs to be accurate. (lol simple and to the point!) The numerous inaccuracies and inconsistencies within the Gospels fall far outside of the range expected for reliability.
Licona seems like a nice man but he’s exasperating to watch as a scholar. He says the Gospels are reliable based on criteria that he created (?) and based on ancient writers in the ancient world. That’s like saying the ancient world’s scientific methods are reliable because we shouldn’t judge them by our modern standards. I don’t think he realizes that his view of Inspiration for the Gospels requires the everyday Christian to have a personal scholar at her side to explain what is factual or possibly an error, and what part is a literary device or a matter of compression.
One of my current pet peeves is the overuse and misuse of pointing out supposed logical fallacies. Licona said you were making an argument from silence regarding the authorship of John. This is a *logical* argument because John does not claim authorship, there’s evidence of it not being known as John in earlier references, and is not mentioned until the time of Irenaeus. So it’s a *logical* argument from silence (not to be confused with the popular fallacy). An illogical argument from silence is claiming that Justin Martyr should have mentioned Jesus in Josephus. The difference here is Josephus has the James passage in every manuscript while Justin argues for a virgin birth narrative; the evidence supports no mention of it. So when a mythicist says (in every single discussion ever) that Josephus never wrote about Jesus because we should expect Justin Martyr to have mentioned it, it’s illogical; it’s an argument from silence.
Great debate…
I honestly don’t know why most Christians (of which I am one) can’t be more honest about the differences, discrepancies, and errors in the gospels.
But, then, I became a believer before I had even read any of the gospels, so once I started reading them, the differences, discrepancies, etc, really didn’t matter much. My faith was never in a book…
Dr Ehrman –
I’d venture to say that if nobody, way back there in history, had ever pronounced the gospels as being “The Inerrant Word of God”, the gospels would be regarded entirely differently than they are by those of a more “conservative” background – and certainly far differently than they’re regarded by those of a “fundamentalist” background.
In the debate, I see your arguments as being arguments that might hit at the heart of that “inerrancy” thing, and as such, might shake the faith of a “fundamentalist” who actually has faith in *inerrancy* of written documents, rather than in the resurrection of Jesus.
But, it’s clear that the story of the resurrection had long preceded the written gospels. It’s also clear (from Paul’s writings) that his readers already had some idea of what Jesus taught, and what Jesus was like.
Paul writes “you also became imitators of us and of the Lord ” (1 Thess 1:6): the congregation could not have become imitators of Paul and his ministry
companions without having known what they were like, nor could they have become imitators of the Lord without already having known what he (Jesus) was like.
Paul writes of many things that are found (later) in the gospels:
“…though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant , being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”
John says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh…”). John also records Jesus as having said “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am”. I don’t know if Jesus ever really uttered those words, but, is it not an expression of the point that Paul taught?
In Galatians 4:4, Paul writes “…But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law…”. Paul is not imparting some kind of *new* information here. He’s reasoning with the Galatians regarding a *story* that they already *knew*. Jesus, born of a woman (and not popping out from under a cabbage, nor descending from Heaven at the apparent age of 30) – and born “under the Law” – a Jew. AND – Jesus’ father was God Himself. Let me put that another way: God “fathered” Jesus. There is no inconsistency at all with what Luke later writes when he says “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for *that* reason [ie, the fact that God quite literally had “fathered” Jesus] the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.”
Paul already knew that Jesus was born “a descendant of David” (Rom 1:1). This knowledge long preceded the genealogies of the gospels, and this knowledge was (apparently) already “in circulation” by the time Paul used this tidbit of info in writing to the Romans. After all, he had himself never *met* the Romans at this point, yet, he’s talking about stuff they must already have had some knowledge of. He is clearly not writing a biography.
Paul writes “Romans 4:2. He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification”, and in Matthew, this shows up as Jesus telling the disciples “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death. and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.”
Did Jesus actually *say* that? Well, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But, Paul sure seemed to have that *info*.
Paul writes “do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God” – a bit of info that later shows up in the gospels as Jesus saying these things:
Matthew 5:2. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 7:2. Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father [ed. living righteously, etc] who is in heaven.
Matthew 5:1. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake , for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Paul writes “Romans 12:19-20 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink”. In the gospels, we read that Jesus says “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you”, and “Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also…. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”
Paul writes “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?”, and in the gospels, we have Jesus saying “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
Paul writes “the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread. And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.. In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me..”. Is this not quite similar to the story found in the (later) gospels? Is this not a story which Paul’s readers *already knew*?
I could go on and on an on and ON, but, to me, it is quite clear that there was already a *story* of an “historic Jesus” that had been circulated, and known, long before the gospels were written down, because Paul repeatedly refers to knowledge *about* Jesus that is already *known* by those that he is writing to. Jesus, born of a woman, a descendent of David, son of God, equal to God, existing “as God” (and hence, “before Abraham”), being humble and in the form of a servant, preaching of the Kingdom of God and righteousness, preaching “you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself”, “don’t judge…”, “bless those who persecute you”, “delivered over”, sharing a meal with his disciples on the night before he was crucified, then betrayed, crucified, died, buried, resurrected.
MY QUESTION – (twofold): If Paul is writing to people who *already knew the ‘story’* – making references (as I mentioned above, plus many other references that show that he is writing to people that already have a knowledge of Jesus) – then, in your estimate, how far “off” can the written gospels really be from the *story* that those people already *knew*? Are those differences really *material* to the story? IE, does it matter to anyone *except* a fundamentalist whether Jesus’ family went to Egypt or not?
Second part: Is it possible, as that lady asked you in the “Q & A” part of the debate, that you have “thrown the baby out with the bathwater”?
1. Yes, some of the differences are absolutely material to the story; 2. It’s possible. It’s also possible that she hasn’t drained the tub! (I’ve always wondered how one knows what is baby and what is bathwater. I simply try to exercise my judgment as carefully and intelligently as I can, rather than hold in reserve certain beliefs that I’m not going to change no matter what.)
Actually, I agree with you totally about some aspects of the Gospels being inaccurate — you can’t have Jesus’ family headed to Egypt and staying in Bethlehem at the same time… (and, as per your other examples in the debate). Either Matt or Luke – or heck, maybe both – got the story of the birth of Jesus wrong.
But – when I referred to “the story” – I really meant (and was totally unclear about) the story that (evidently) the people that Paul wrote to already knew: Jesus existed “as God”, took human form in the birth by a woman, of the family of David, was poor, humble, taught some nice things (which maybe were available in “Q”? perhaps?), was even still doing miracles, and was betrayed on the night that he shared a meal with the disciples, talking about “this bread is my body…” (etc), was “delivered over”, crucified at the Passover, died, buried, resurrected (and probably any number of other things that seem to indicate Paul’s readers already knew “the story”). *That’s* the story I was referring to, and the circumstances of his birth in the conflicting accounts of Luke and Matt don’t change that one bit.
QUESTION FROM DEBATE: *IF* I remember correctly, it seems you said something about the Gospel of John putting the crucifixion on the Day of Preparation, when the lambs were being slaughtered, and, the other Gospels say he was crucified *on* the Passover? (I *may* just not have understood correctly. OH, just to tell you, I do understand how the Jewish calender works).
But, as far as I can tell, *all* the Gospels put the crucifixion on the Day of Preparation:
Mark 15: When evening had already come, because it *was the preparation day*, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea came [asking for Jesus’ body]
Matthew 27: [after Jesus’ crucifixion and burial] “… Now on the next day, the day *after* the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ Therefore… [blablabla]”
Luke 23: And he [Joseph of Arimathea] took it [Jesus’ body] down and wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid Him in a tomb cut into the rock, where no one had ever lain. It *was the preparation day*, and the Sabbath was about to begin.
John 27: Then the Jews, because it was *the day of preparation*, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
Did I just misunderstand what you were saying in the debate, or, did you mean to say that John differs from the other Gospels about which day Jesus was crucified on? If I understood correctly, could you take a moment to elaborate?
In the Synoptics he dies on the day of preparation for the *SABBATH* (i.e. Friday) not on the day of preparation for the *Passover* (which for them was Thursday). In John the day of preparation of the sabbath was also the day of preparation for Passover (I.e. the day of preparatoin fell on a Friday).
Ah, yes… That’s right! John says the two days – preparation for Sabbath and for Passover – were the same day! Wow! Looks like a real “gotcha”.
Except… It’s pretty well documented that since the Babylonian capitivity, changes were made to the Passover/Unleavened Bread… It was once that in a home celebration, the lamb was sacrificed “ben ha arabayim”, “between the two evenings” – which was understood as the dusk between the 13th and the 14th, and the lamb was then roasted and eaten once it got dark (still on the 14th). But, especially with the Temple – “ben ha arabayim”, “between the two evenings” – was interpreted to mean anytime after sundown on the 13th (thus, becoming the 14th), and the next sundown (which became the 15th) – so that, in the Temple, they’d have *all day* to slaughter lambs on the 14th (and not just at that time of dusk), and the meal was then eaten on the 15th.
My guess is that John is simply going by “Temple reckoning” here – “Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour.” It was indeed the “day of preparation”, *as far as the Temple was concerned*. It was the daylight hours of the 14th, during which they had the whole of the day (if needed) to sacrifice lambs. But, in home celebrations? It was still a common practice to sacrifice the lamb during the time of dusk between the 13th and 14th, and eat the Passover meal at dark – also on the 14th.
The changes due to the re-interpretation of “ben ha arabayim” – perhaps to accommodate the plethora of sacrifices at the Temple – effectively “stole” a day away from the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was indeed to have begun on the 15th, as a *totally separate* thing from the Passover.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all seem very much to be describing a “Traditional” Passover observation, where the lamb is killed at dusk, and the meal is eaten on that same night (the 14th).
And, if this is correct, then Matthew, Mark and Luke were all attesting to Jesus’ having shared a Passover meal with them (indicating that for them, and probably for thousands and thousands of homes across Judea/Galilee) the lamb had been killed at sundown, the blood put on the doorposts, and the lamb roasted and eaten. And, John would also be quite correct: Jesus was crucified *as they killed the lambs In The Temple* – which was the *daylight* hours of the 14th, by that reckoning.
I’d be happy to provide you with considerable documentation to support what I’m saying, if you like. But, just know that this “change” I’m talking about is even documented in the Jewish Encyclopedia – so – it’s not as if it’s something totally obscure…
Dr. Ehrman,
What works of ancient history would you consider reliable and why? *I didn’t see this question come up in any debate)
I’m not sure what you’re referrig to. Do you mean which “ancient historians” were accurate? If so, I’d need ot know which kind of historians you mean (Jewish historians? Roman? Greek? Something else?)
Dr. Ehrman,
Although you clearly disagree,
What would you say the best argument is that the resurrection did take place?
There can’t be *evidence* for miracles. They either happen or they don’t. But if they do, they are not susceptible of historical proof. That’s why they’re miracles.
Dr. Ehrman,
Without getting into philosophy, what would you say the other side’s best argument for the resurrection is at least prima facie i.e. would it be the group appearances found in Paul?
There is no good historical argument for any event that cannot be established historically. (A miracle is not subject to historical cause and effect, and so is not open to historical verification)
Dr. Ehrman,
Just catching up on some of these debates, but I think there was an important point left out of this debate. Dr. Licona concedes that there are many minor variations between NT manuscripts, but there are actually relatively few “meaningful” variations. This provides evidence that over the centuries the gospels were actually pretty good in capturing the “gist” of the meaning.
However, it was never mentioned that for over a thousand years, any original or early NT manuscript that contained major variations from the orthodox scriptures would have been deemed heretical and would have been systematically destroyed. (And possibly the owner of such material as well!). So who could really know the extent of the “meaningful” variations in early NT manuscripts? Shouldn’t we take into account how effectively this filtered out the non-conforming early works?
Thanks!! Love following the blog!
Paul (not the original)
Yes, there were almost certainly large variations in mss that did not survive. I suppose Licona could say it was providence they were destroyed!