Here is my second post on Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus from many years ago. As you’ll see, I was no happier about the book once I started reading it than when I was anticipating doing so. But here at least I give some reasons that show my fears were starting to be confirmed. Confirmation bias? Yeah, maybe. But well, in this case, I don’t think so….
I will say, though, I was much feistier eight years ago when I wrote this thing….
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I received my copy of Killing Jesus in the mail today and started to glance at it. I know I said I would read it, but I’m just not sure I can bring myself to do it.
The opening “Note to Readers” makes one’s heart sink. We are told that this will be a “fact-based book.” Oh, that’s good, the reader thinks: it won’t be biased but will be objective, based only on facts. Until you begin to read the opening page of ch. 1
“Heavily armed solders from the capital city of Jerusalem are marching to this small town, intent on finding and killing the baby boy. They are a mixed-race group of foreign mercenaries from Greece, Gaul, and Syria….”
Oh dear. So, for our FOX historian of antiquity writing this account – the Gospel according to Bill – who is giving us only “facts,” it turns out that the “slaughter of the innocents” in Bethlehem, taken from Matthew’s infancy narrative, is a factual, historical account. We not only know it happened, we know which soldiers Herod sent forth for killing the Christ-child (foreign mercenaries: and we know which countries they came from! I’m surprised he doesn’t tell us how many there were and what their names, ranks, serial numbers!).
Anyway, back to the Note to the Readers. We are assured that Bill-and-buddy-co-“author” have based their information “on classical works.” That sounds good – no modern, biased accounts, but only ancient accounts will be used. And then we are told how that is possible. This is an actual quote (so are my other quotes, but this one is so hard to believe that I have to assure you, they say it!): “The Romans kept incredible records of the time, and a few Jewish historians in Palestine also wrote down the events of the day.”
And so that’s how we will have a fact-based account, based on classical works. OK, so let’s start with the second half of that statement first. How many “Jewish historians…in Palestine…of the day” do we actually have that they can base their narrative on? Well,
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Do you think the Massacre of the Innocents occurred and if not, why would “Matthew” put it in there?
Absolutely I do not think so. In part it is there like almost everything else in Matthew’s infancy narrative is there: it “fulfills Scripture.”
My understanding was to draw the parallel between the life of Jesus and the life of Moses. Repeating the massacre of the innocents in Goshen during Moses’ life. The parallel is continued in Mary, Joseph, and Jesus escape to Egypt like Moses was saved by an Egyptian princess and then they were called out of Egypt just like Moses. This allowed the gospel writer to use that analogy to “discover” scripture that these events fulfilled.
Another question: You started a series about the theological differences between Jesus and John of Patmos. Can we have some more installments? It was really interesting.
I”m not going to give too much, since it’s a major theme of the book I’m writing just now.
Although I have not read the book
but it sounds like if Benny Hill after
watching Monty Python’s life of Brian
made a sketch and credited
Norman Wisdom and Tommy Cooper
as his sources.
I believe these past two reflection on Killing Jesus go well with your recent post on biblical scholarship. I would maintain that actual scholarship, which is usually published in academic journals and scholarly books, is by and large inaccessible to most folks. As a result, someone like Bill and co. can come in and fill the void with their own brand of scholarship. To make matters worse, he’s a “trusted” individual to many folks, and he is able to make claims and drown out conflicting, albeit well researched and argued, information.
One further indictment of O’Reilly’s slanted view of the Gospels. When treating the cleansing of the Temple, he finds referencing the event as happened at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and at the end (the majority view.) O’Reilly reconciles this conflict by asserting the event must have happened TWICE. This literalist treatment we don’t need.
Bill O’Reilly wrote for a specific audience; the people who watched Fox News and didn’t think for themselves very much. I haven’t read any of hi ” Killing” books because I know there wouldn’t be anything I would learn that I couldn’t learn of Wikipedia, or maybe a quick trip the the Library.
I watch Fox News and I’m an agnostic who doesn’t believe much of anything O’Reilly writes, particularly regarding history. Christians aren’t the only ones who need to check their biases and verify their sources.
I do have a question. You’ve been asked, and have answered questions about the difference in “trade” books and “scholarly” works. It’s still something of a mystery to me if ordering from Amazon.
I purchased Paula Fredriksen’s book Paul: the Pagans Apostle on Audible. I listen to a lot of books on Audible. As well as having the physical books, I have most of your trade books on Audible so I can listen in the car.
I’m having trouble following Dr Fredriksen’s train of thought. She breaks things up by using a lot of citations and quoting Greek. I was wondering what genre you would put her work in? I can see how a scholarly work would be much easier to follow in book form. I’m finishing up Dr John J Collins’ “Daniel, with an Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature”. I’m following it quite well. If I really needed to write something on it I feel like I could dig into the citations and not get bogged down. I wouldn’t see this book playing well on Audible.
Your thoughts?
My sense is that it is a book meant for scholars that laypeople familiar with a lot of the jargon can get a lot out of, soemthing that is csometimes called a “crossover book” (crossing between scholarly and lay readership)
I think that if Jesus was really the son of god as some say, he definitely picked the wrong time in history. Or maybe not. For faith to work. As we all know faith is good to keep you going, but so is a lie.
If he’d come today he would have reached the whole nation, Israel in 4 b.c. had no mass communications.
I completely get it! (And wonder if others do)
First phrase that came to mind before I saw Matt2239’s reply!
And now we do have mass media and have had it a while. It’s the latest part of a 2,000 year period since Jesus died. After 2,000 years and a lot of evangelizing, Christians comprise only 1/3 of the human populations. Should God hire a better marketing firm?
You explained in your previous post on this topic, the path to scholarly expertise. The world is full of people selling faith who haven’t followed that path. They take small parts of what was written to sell their points which are often taken out of context. I’m glad to have your blog to learn from.
OTHER THAN THAT, Dr. Ehrman, did you enjoy the the book? 😉
I started laughing already from the sentence ”The opening “Note to Readers” makes one’s heart sink”. 🤣🤣🤣
Oh boy, I would NOT enjoy having Bart Ehrman dissecting my “credible” historical account! 😂😂
First thing I do when I pick up a non-fiction book is flip to the back and look at the sources. If they are not extensive or solid (example, no blogs) I just put the book back on the shelf. That’s exactly what I did with this book when it came out.
Haha, Fox Herod. Like.
You are setting a standard.
Circa First Century sources I feel more secure about:
1. DSS
I believe Eisenman’s carbon-dating exigesis in the New Testament Code.
2. Inscriptions
Good call on the incompleteness of Roman records. Thank FSM for the Pilate stone:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilate_stone
3. Texts in Jesus’ lifetime not Jewish or Roman, like Strabo
I mean, Latin was the language of the enemy. DSS circa First Century are in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Nabatean Aramaic, Hebrew (some crypticized), and Greek.
The Latin fragments found were from soldiers not doing the niceness
https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/learn-about-the-scrolls/languages-and-scripts?locale=en_US
4. Material Culture
Tin isotopes from Cornwall found in 13-12th BCE Israel? Repeat the study, please:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/groundbreaking-study-ancient-tin-ingots-found-in-israel-were-mined-in-england
I think east of the Jordan is waaaaaaaaay understudied.
5. Genetics
Heuristic from Krause: people who live in an area now are usually not the people who lived in an area then.
6. r/linguistics
ancient translation, vowel/consonant shifts, and root associations. Like serene, serendipity, Cyrenaic.
Nag Hammadi, Oxyrhynchus, Genizah, Mar Saba stuff are dated farther out, but so was virtually everything Christian until the 20th century, right?
Mishnah, haggada and everyday writings *attributed* to circa First Century Judaism are important. You brought my attention to how little scientific dating there is for these texts yet. Thank you!
Hello Serene, regarding your point 5 about genetics, there is now statistically valid data (that meets the 5 sigma scientific standard for certainty) from ancient DNA analysis to support the claim that people who live in an area now are not usually the people who lived in an area then.
See the book ‘Who we are and how we got here’ by David Reich for a complete bibliography for the data and techniques used.
For a very good podcast where Sean Carroll interviews Reich just search for Mindscape episode 179 | David Reich on Genetics and Ancient Humanity from January 10, 2022.
I enjoy your comments and search for reliable information so hope you incorporate ancient DNA studies into your developing worldview.
marh
marh, that Reich book is on my to-do reading list! I just got swept up in a songwriting workshop by the singer who wrote this:
Lyrics I thought sounded like Passion Week. He has an athiest subsection of his fanbase who say it ain’t so.
But one is capable of being spiritual (what the singer identifies as) or athiest and write about texts, see our Bart Ehrman
Monday night
Rowdy in the road outside
I saw the gate coming down
And smoke all around the south hill
These last days
Con-men controlled my fate
No one is holding the whip
And the oil won’t stick
But I will
Now that a light is on
Now that the water runs
And the heartless are nearly gone
No time to get it wrong
Sunday end
Ache for the sight of friends
Though I’ve been safe in the thought
That the line we walk is the same one
Now that a light is on
Now that the water runs
And the heartless are nearly gone
No time to get it wrong
Sometimes it comes to this, no it’s true
This time, what comes of it, call it due
I do, I do
I do, I do
Now that a light is on
Now that the water runs
And the heartless are nearly gone
No time to get it wrong
From what I have read about the ancient Roman Empire is that Emperor Tiberius Caesar had informed his subordinates not to needlessly antagonize the Jews. The slaughter of perhaps dozens of toddler boys most certainly would have caused an uproar. He is a deeply committed Catholic who his not afraid to argue his point(s), even those that are shallow and does not really want to hear facts. Richard Dawkins appeared on his show years ago and those few moments reveal a lot. That interview is on YouTube and is worth a view.
Not feisty at all. Great stuff and needs saying with garbage like this.
If it’s written by an O’Reilly or a MacLeod gens/clan imo it’s a bridge that uplifts their people, a steppy step towards science. No one gets things 100% right.
Herod Bothering the Innocents could be wrong, or coded like the Legion story probably is, but it isn’t implausible. That’s like 1.4 babies in an Essene village. Doesn’t say he managed to succeed, either.
“But they do not use to accompany with their wives when they are with child, as a demonstration that they do not marry out of regard to pleasure, but for the sake of posterity.” — Josephus
https://lexundria.com/j_bj/2.161/wst
Archaeology finds ~80% of Roman empire villages/cities had a disposal place for infanticide. Unfortunately, it was a family planning method of the ancient world.
That it was a much bigger crime to Gospel writers and modern-day people shows *how advanced* their sensibilities were.
Children’s rights overall were just not having a good in the Torah:
Exodus 21:7
If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do.
I’d question *which* Herod, since Epiphaneus blasts another Christian text for mixing up kings. I also wonder if it alludes to metempsychosis — fontanelle fully closing at two.
I don’t know which is more depressing, that this book spent time at the top of the NYTs’ bestseller list, or the fact that a book can be a bestseller by selling a hundred thousand copies in a country of more than three hundred million people. I’ve known people that I’m pretty sure have never read more than ten books in their lives.
Somebody gifted me this book years ago and I felt obligated to read it. I got about 4 pages in and immediately chucked it into the donation pile. What a bunch of nonsense. Kudos to you for making it through to the end.
Off topic question please Dr Ehrman. My bible group was reading Matthew 15:10-20 today and we struggled with the statement: what goes into your mouth doesn’t defile you but what comes out does (I’m paraphrasing). I looked at your Jesus Apocalyptic prophet book but couldn’t find any direct reference to this passage. I couldn’t see how these words might fit into the apocalypticism hypothesis and wondered if they represented something more esoteric?
It’s a way of saying the eating kosher is not as important as, well, watching your mouth.
It is extremely difficult to objectively review a piece whose basic presuppositions are so obviously false. That being said, I think this review would be much more compelling if it did not contain language like “Billy and buddy,” or the “Gospel according to Billy.” You come off sounding like the former guy, e.g., “Pocahontas.”
Reading this comment today, I am slightly ashamed to see the political undercurrent here. My bad. Apologies to Dr. Ehrman and other commenters. I still think the dismissive name calling detracts from the review though. Ridicule doth not an argument make. (– Irving Locke Hume)
If O’Reilly puts out a book that’s highly inaccurate, and that (some) people will read and accept as truth, he deserves whatever he gets. I don’t think someone with real knowledge and credentials has to play nice about it. But I’m from New Jersey…
Bill (and buddy) got 2 things right though: King Herod did have Gallic (and other) mercenary troops (see Josephus AJ XVII:198) and Jesus books sell well 🙂
I can’t wait for his book on quantum physics! I think he’s going to read three extra books for that one!
To what extent is the success of books like “Killing Jesus” an indictment of New Testament scholars? Could you have done more to spread genuine knowledge about the Bible to the people?
Hey, it’s not my fault. 🙂 But yes, the guild is not good about spreading knowledge, and so ignorance abounds.
(about Killing Jesus and whether the NT scholars could have done more to prevent it)
I know there has been discussion among physicists and doctors about whether they could do more to prevent the flourishing of “quantum woo”, crystal healing, anti-vaccine sentiments, etc. There’s a lot of pseudo-science out there.
It is not possible to kill Jesus.
Mankind has already done that.
No matter the love he expressed, no matter his teachings, he is already dead.
Why? Because men have preferred to teach what THEY THEMSELVES want to teach not what Jesus taught.
Jesus was too simple for them.
On several debates i have mentioned thatthere’s at least 12 y difference between Luke and Mathew accounts of Jesus birth, Mathew says that Jesus was born at the time of King Herod and Luke reports that Jesus was born when Quirinius became governor of Judah, if Jesus was around 2 years at the time of the massacre and Quirinius only became governor 10 years after King Herods death that gives us the 12 yish gap between both accounts, but christians never accept that gap, am i wrong in my statement?
Luke also puts Jesus birth “in the days of Herod” (1:5). The difference is that Luke seems to think that Herod was king at the same time the Quirinius was the governor of Syria, and that’s off by about ten years.
It is sometimes pointed out that Quirinius held other positions in the region before he was made governor of Syria. If he held some other position there at some time when Herod was still alive, and carried through a limited census then, this would perhaps save Luke’s narrative to some extent. Some people think so, but I think it is unlikely.
What is the evidence of that? And why would Luke call him the governor of Syria at the time if he wasn’t the governor of Syria?
I suppose they will say that Luke made a simple mistake.
Let me quote the footnotes to Luke 2:1-2 in the modern “official” Swedish Bible (Bibel 2000), and pardon my poor translation attempt:
“If Jesus was born during the time of Herod the Great, ie. 4 BC at the latest, Luke’s statements contradicts Josephus. According to an explanatory attempt, Luke would refer to a preparatory census, Josephus to the tax collection itself.”
“Quirinius … had also previously held military and political positions in the region.”
Personally, I don’t doubt that Quirinius held these earlier positions, but this idea of the preparatory census seems ad hoc to me. I think it is quite clear that it is the 6 AD census Luke has in mind.
But this idea of a preparotory census is quite widespread, since the Swedish Bible translators felt compelled to mention it. I also once heard an American pastor propagate for it.
Prof. Bart – Off-topic: I’d like to ask about John 8:24-25:
24 εἶπον οὖν ὑμῖν ὅτι ἀποθανεῖσθε ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν: ἐὰν γὰρ μὴ πιστεύσητε ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι, ἀποθανεῖσθε ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν. 25 ἔλεγον οὖν αὐτῷ, Σὺ τίς εἶ; εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ τι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν;
NRSV translates it as:
24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.”* 25 They said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Why do I speak to you at all?**
*Gk “I am”
**Or “What I have told you from the beginning”
Seems to me the footnoted bits are the clear readings, rather than their preferred formulation: John has Jesus making an I AM/YHWH claim and harkening back to the “beginning”/Ἐν ἀρχῇ opening of this gospel. Is there some reason to favor “I am (unspecified) HE”? The egō seems grammatically superfluous with the eimi, unless you’re trying to emphasize the burning-bush image. And is there a Greek idiom or textual variant to support the “Why do I even bother” reading?
Thanks!
I think the “why do I speak to you at all” is a strange translation — but I haven’t checkeed to see if there is some scholarhip on it. It looks to mean more like the final note, “The which I said to you from the outset.” I like the idea though about the EGO EIMI; it resonates, of course with what happens some verses later in 8:58.
Thank you.
I’m still a bit baffled by the “why do I speak to you” reading. The RSV translated it straight as “Even what I have told you from the beginning,” with the footnote “Why do I talk to you at all.”
So I wondered if Team Metzger had rethought that bit and found a reason to interpret those words so differently for the NRSV.
And yes, the egō eimi sure seems to be hinting at a larger claim. I have heard you cite John 8:58 many times, so that’s exactly the resonance I had when I read this passage.
Are the 8:58 verb tenses as arresting in Greek as they are in English? In English, the verbal logic of the sentence just hits you in the face – and it feels that way to me in Greek. Though I’m far from a native speaker of Koine.
-58 εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί.
58 Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”
Yes, the verb tenses are guite striking in the Greek as well. As I indicated, I ahven’t studied the verse with modern translations in mind, so I’m not sure what their basis for the alternative translation is.
O’Reilly and buddy not only mangled history with Jesus, but Lincoln, too. “Killing Lincoln,” published in 2011, is not carried by some Lincoln-associated historical sites because of its inaccuracies. See https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2011/1116/Bill-O-Reilly-s-Killing-Lincoln-continues-to-stir-controversy. (Be sure to read the link to the Washington Post.)
For one, because of the inaccuracies, the National Park Service refused to sell it in Ford’s Theater — you know, where the killing of Lincoln happened. Rae Emerson, deputy superintendent at Ford’s Theatre, reviewed it and wrote a four-page errata sheet. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fords-theatre-historical-review-of-bill-oreillys-lincoln-book/2011/11/12/gIQAC604FN_story.html. This was the basis for the NPS not carrying the book.
The aforementioned Washington Post article stated:
“Few presidents, indeed few subjects, are as voluminously researched and fought over as Lincoln. Steers notes that more than 16,000 books and articles have been written about Lincoln, with more than 125 volumes on the assassination. He adds that only eight of the assassination books were written by professional historians.”
This was not one of the eight.
This is hilarious. Very recreational to read a scholar take down a puffed up dork like O’Reilly.
Dr. Ehrman,
In the world of real scholarship, do you think Raymond Browns ‘Death of the Messiah’ is still a good read for those interested in the historic Jesus? I’ve read several of browns other books (I found his writing style wonderfully clear) and am interested in the concept but I know a fair amount of time since his passing and am unsure if I should look for a more recent publication.
It’s terrific, still worht reading.
I bought Killing Jesus as a joke for my friend (it was used).
In all seriousness, why are you subjecting yourself to this? You’re one of the leading scholars on the historical Jesus and early Christianity. Are you a masochist?
It was a lark….