(8 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Loading...Several people alerted me to Mike Licona’s response to my post on our debate over a specific contradiction in the Gospels. I checked it out and thought it would be interesting to get your response before giving my own. I asked Mike if it was OK to share it on the blog, and yes indeed, it is.
As you’ll see, it is over a very simple matter. When Jesus sent his disciples on a mission to preach the kingdom, did he tell them explicitly to *take* a staff with them (Gospel of Mark) or tell them explicitly *not* to take a staff (Matthew and Luke)?
Mike does not think it’s a contradiction. If Matthew reports that Jesus said TAKE a staff and Mark reports that he said DO NOT take a staff it means basically the same thing. That may sound counterintuitive, but Mike explains his reasoning: if you look at the entire context, the gist of the saying is the same between the two accounts; Matthew is just simplifying a detail in Mark.
For Mike, it’s like girls who tell stories including lots of detail (as in Mark) and guys who just get to the point (Gospel of Matthew).
Moreover, Mike thinks that it’s pedantic (OK, he thinks *I* am pedantic) to argue there is a difference. (BTW: I may be pedantic :-), but I wasn’t the one who raised this point of difference. The moderator of the debate did.) (I don’t recall *ever* mentioning this passage in a debate about the Gospels. There are SO many more major contradictions that I prefer talking about….)
In any event, what do you think of his response? Let us know!
I think it depends on how you define a discrepancy/mistake.
You’ve said yourself that ancient writers basically made up speeches, that oral societies change stories for the occasion, and that it wasn’t possible to know exactly what anyone in the ancient word said on any given occasion.
In Mark’s version of the story, he says take nothing but a staff. What if the point is that they are supposed to travel light? If Matthew/Luke emphasized the point by saying to not even take a staff, they might simply be making the same point with the volume turned up. It’s not a mistake if they changed it deliberately. You could call it a discrepancy in detail, but if the point of the story is the same, and perhaps even goes back to something Jesus said did, does the difference in detail matter? Unless you insist on complete inerrancy, my opinion is that it does not.
Is it not also significant that Matthew and Luke change Mark in a similar way?
My sense is that Mark may have wanted to make a *point* by having Jesus indicate they should take a staff, and only a staff. The key would be figuring out what that might be. Whatever it is, Matthew/Luke both changed it. (Because they were aware of another tradition?)
generally people who claim the bible has no actual errors and try to explain them when absolutely necessary are usually the type of people who on very important issues such as LGBT acceptance, abortion and other 21st century social and political issues stick to the very straight and narrow issues. That is to say: LGBT orientation is sinful; abortion is murder (although they have to jump through hoops to actually find direct evidence of this) and so on. That is to say, they demand absolute adherence to their way of biblical interpretation on these relevant issues in the way people live their lives while trying to trivialize the major textual and common sense contradictions.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that: if you can make excuses for the issues of the obvious contradictions in the four canonical gospels on such major issues as the nativity story, the trial of Jesus, the crucifixion/resurrection and intellectualize them away, then why can’t you cut those with differing orientations/views of women’s place in the world some slack and just emphasize the overall message of love, mercy and compassion that seem to be a major part of the message of Jesus?
Exactly! People pick and choose what they want and what is convenient for their views. God hates queers but has no problem with me being filthy rich and an occasional adulterer….
One other thing on the matter of biblical contradictions: If people in general are listening to those who are able to trivialize such obvious biblical contradictions and claim biblical inerrancy are applying such reasoning to their personal lives: politics, behavior, the way they treat their fellow human beings, is it any wonder that we seem to be drifting toward a new dark age of ‘alternative facts,’ ‘fake news’ and general anti-logic?
to me it does seem to be connected in some way. Somewhat oddly, since in traditional fundamentalist thinking literalism prevailed and so contradictions had to be explained, not skated over.
How can we know what Jesus really said?
Doctor: You have a baby boy!
Wife: We have a baby girl!
Mike: They do not contradict, we have a baby and that is what matters.
This is what I take from the argument and I wonder if he uses this method in real life or on all literature.
Love it! Amazing analogy
Mr Liconia’s approach at harmonizing these contradictions is abysmal at most. He sweeps the contradiction under the rug as “ oh well we get the overall gist”
Mark 6:8 reads “save a staff only (semicolon)” then list what not to take. This is significant. Not a “girl/boy” version that’s ridiculous and an insult to the word.
Why not accept/embrace the contradictions as written in the Bible and look into the biblical significance of a staff and why Jesus would want them to take it ?
Clearly there is too much info on a staff/rod we could pull from the OT to thoroughly discuss in this blog.
There are contradictions in the Bible and they are significant in understanding who God is.
Plus I think “do not take 2 coats “ is more interesting than the staff anyway. Look at coat in OT as first mentioned in Gen 3:21
And a side note. I don’t consider myself an atheist. To me atheist is a dirty word…lol.
But did he say to take a staff, or not take a staff? It seems to me that there is a difference. Isn’t a contradiction a contradiction?
A contradiction is in the word, contra “against” diction “speech” or “saying”.
If you are told to take a staff and someone else says not to take a staff, the second person is contradicting the first.
Watched MIke’s response, he is a nice guy. As with many Christians who believe the bible is inerrant, he will not give an inch on anything that would challenge that position. This is from a comment I left on the Youtube video: ” Your example of the girl account being different than the boy account doesn’t address the issue at all. What if the girl said she served the group a seafood dinner and the boy said he was sure she fed the group hotdogs, that is a much more realistic comparison to the staff issue.” In another debate I watched between you guys he was questioned about the two different days in two different gospels Jesus died on. His response was that he believed in the inerrancy of the Bible but didn’t have an answer to the discrepancy.
Misguided faith and the refusal to face clear facts are probably a couple of factors contributing to the decline of the Christian church.
You have successfully demonstrated that there are contradictions in the Gospels that make them unreliable as historical records. This particular contradiction is no big deal in either your view or Mike’s, but it is a contradiction nonetheless. So you both agree that it is a contradiction AND you both agree that it’s no big deal. Because of the context in which it was addressed, you are maintaining the point that it is a contradiction, no matter how insignificant. That is true. Because of Mike’s different overall view to how the Gospels should be understood, he is downplaying the contradiction to show that the meaning of the story is not swayed by it, and that also is true.
Now here’s the red herring: Mike is using this as an example of why you teach that the Gospels are not historically accurate. I don’t think that’s true. Calling attention to this is distracting from the truly important contradictions that undergird your position.
I don’t think Jesus’ staff inflection should cause such festering.
Bart, I echo the comment above.
Of course, Licona is, in one sense, right. People often tell a story differently, and therefore Matthew and Luke don’t literally “err” when they change one detail. They just make different choices. But that approach to the problem ducks the real issue. The statements in Matthew and Luke and the statement in Mark differ. They are indeed contradictory. So if one is trying to argue that the Bible is consistent and infallible (which Licona doesn’t do in this context), this contradiction can’t be dismissed by saying it results from different authorial choices. Either the statement in Mark or the statement in Matthew and Luke is wrong. Why the authors made the choices they made is a different, much more interesting, issue (and I’m pretty sure has nothing to do with the difference between boy-talk and girl -talk).
More intriguing is Licona’s throwaway comment about source material. Did Matthew and Luke both draw on Mark? If so, why did they BOTH change one minor detail? Did Matthew and Luke both draw on a different source? If so, then why are the passages in Matthew and Luke otherwise so similar to what Mark wrote? Did Luke draw on Matthew, or vice versa? What do you think, Dr. Ehrman?
I think you brought up a very important point: both Matthew and Luke used Mark as source material.
So the big question is why did Matthew and Luke change it? What were they trying to say?
I don’t have a firm idea about it — I”ve never gone deeply into an exegesis of the passage and would need to in order to work it out. But it does seem to me that Mark is emphasizing that the apostles will have a very long journey among them and their only concern should be to get where they are going (take a staff!) whereas Matthew and Luke want to shift the emphasis to stress that the apostles will need to rely *entirely* on God for everything. They need nothing but what’s on their backs. (Don’t even take a staff!). It’s a difference in nuance, but it would be a different emphasis. If they are saying exactly the same thing, of course, there is no difference, nuanced, or otherwise, at all.
It’s okay to think an error doesn’t matter but it’s not okay to say it’s not an error when it obviously is. That’s just dishonest and to call it inerrant is willfully misleading.
Nope Mr Licona, I just don’t buy it. There IS a plain difference between the two accounts. The question is whether it’s a big deal or not. You & Prof Ehrman probably agree that it’s not – if the practical conclusion is about the overall context. But if a church-superimposed conclusion NEEDS to be that contradictions CANNOT be present between the synoptic accounts, which the church has decided are its sacred texts, then that line in the sand must be defended at all costs. The organisation that employs you – what is it’s official stance on this question of whether any contradictions might or could possibly exist between biblical texts?
And another thing – you say others ask you if Prof Ehrman might really believe what he himself says but THAT question is a bit of an insult. Bart’s entire work & credibility is based entirely upon the irrelevance of BELIEVING anything and upon deciding where available evidence & reason may or may not be leading. In his line of work ANY belief risks adulterating his outcomes – I would suggest almost akin to the academic transgression of plagiarism.
Bart,
Actually, there is a second conflicting detail.
Mark says to take a staff AND to wear sandals (but the wording flow is a bit awkward)
Matthew says to not take a staff and to NOT wear sandals.
Luke says no staff and does not mention sandals (and no “extra” tunic instead of not taking two tunics).
I think the sandals requirement is also interesting since the end of the prescribed tasks require a ‘shaking dust off their feet’ if not properly welcomed. Shaking dust off of feet versus shaking dust off of sandals when leaving a premise seems to be a trivial point, but feet are certainly more intimate than sandals. If it was customary to remove sandals before entering a house, then the sandals requirement would seem reasonable for traveling between houses, as might a staff be reasonable for walking safely and basic security (along with the ‘authoritative’ symbolism).
The staff and sandals are both useful items to fulfill the mission. Not having either seems to be more of an ascetic approach for spreading the word and that may have been a more favorable setting for Matthew (and Luke). Are ascetic leanings in Matthew and Luke common?
I’d say especially Luke. I wonder if both of them had simply heard a different versoin of the story.
I have two burning questions…
Is there one particulr gospel which seems to bear more evidence of scribal corruption than the others?
AND
Did the earliest scribes find themselves always working on all four gospels or were the projects scattered abroad among seperate “shops” for some reason?
By the way, the only thing I have to add to the video discussion is that I don’t appreciate the depiction of you as Kilroy peeking over the wall. LOL
Thanks
Ha! It’s a good question about which Gospels scribes changed the most. There is certainly an answer out there, but I’m not sure what it is. Mark was the least *copied* of the four, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was changed less often proportionally, esp. since passages which differ from Matthew or Luke or more often put into conformity iwth them (since scribes knew the other two better). So I”m not sure.
Scribes would have been copying simply one text at a time, though they would often “harmonize” one to another (that is, make it say exactly what the other wasy saying).
To me, the most important thing about this discussion is the very conversation itself – the (generally) civil, friendly, respectful conversation taking place here. Dr. Ehrman, I am deeply grateful for that! In these times, it is refreshing to find a forum in which people can disagree in an atmosphere of (generally) good will. Thank you!
Thanks. Yup, it’s hard to have civil conversations these days. (maybe “hard” isn’t the right word; people usually *choose* not to have them….)
I believe this obvious (and overall insignificant) contradiction merely reflects human nature to tell and retell a story in whatever manner or version (including inconsistent ones) is currently satisfying to the storyteller. And I am reminded of a junior high English teacher who had a student at one end of the class whisper a sentence to the closest classmate, which exercise was then repeated through the entire class to see how the final whispered version aligned with the original. Long story short, the final version (of the original sentence about Italians throwing cooked pasta at the ceiling to see if it sticks) was pure gobbledygook. The true believers’ efforts to dismiss and explain away contradictions in the gospels is most entertaining.
Theres some theological newspeak at work here.
“That’s not a contradiction, it’s a legitimate bigraphical revision”. Sort of like saying we re not at war we are involved in a police action.
What standard we are operating by here, law or grace? I say that ironically because on one hand from a distance we are asked to veiw the bible foresnsically as a work of absolute perfection which is without error. Well, that by nature invites scrutiny of the most unrelenting kind. And once the microscope is employed and we see all kinds of problems, we are told we need to be more forgiving in the name of “literary sensitivity”.
“Therefore, I was not vacillating when I intended to do this, was I? Or what I decide, do I decide according to the flesh, so that with me there will be yes, yes and no, no at the same time?” But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no.”
Yet the gospels say yes in one place and no in two others. Albeit it’s about something minor. “But if you are not faithful in the little things, how will you be trusted in the greater things?”
Nice comment I second this
Licona is a nice guy who i get the feel is afraid of rotting in hell forever if he tips over into too much doubt.
His face looks like William lane Craig’s, stressed out from dealing with all the battling doubts over years
Its a lot of stress to handle. It’s an anxiety worse than the anxiety of being about to die. He’s really been through a lot.
I found that since both Matthew and Luke left out the staff in Jesus’ instructions, then that was the one I stayed with. Mark also has less material in his Gospel compare to the other two. I also sensed he was leaning more in the familiarity of Moses character, where Matthew and Luke were more focused on Just Jesus’ terms. I also stuck with Luke’s writing, when Jesus asked them, “When I sent you out two by two, did you lack anything?” This helped to solidify they had nothing but the clothes on their back. Yes there is a slight contradiction, but I did not feel is was big enough to need to stumble over it.
Christian apologists want to take literally what they want to take literally and excuse discrepancies by citing the gist of the story being accurate, even if details do not literally agree between accounts. Their job is to comfort believers and give them arguments so they don’t have to doubt their scriptures. Apologists want it both ways and get it. This is the opposite of the scientific method, or even valid historical methods, it is sophistry.
I would dearly love to hear Prof Licona explain his “guy version” and “girl version” viewpoint on a panel with, say… Adela Yarbro Collins, or Paula Frederickson, or Candida Moss, or Francesca Stavrakopoulou or Elizabeth Clark, etc
That would very amusing. Any way to arrange it?
Yeah, I know….
Sign me up!! Popcorn.
How many staffs Winston?
http://thenewporphyry.blogspot.com/
Hi Bart. First of all, I think it’s great that you and Mike Licona fundamentally disagree and yet remain friends. That’s great!!!! That was probably the case with the disciples! It was almost certainly the case with the early church. I run a group with atheists, agnostics evangelicals and an Orthodox Christian we have dinner drink a few pints argue but remain friends. It’s not easy and has to be worked at, because religious beliefs are very central to peoples’ lives and atheistic beliefs are also very central to peoples’ lives because they both have such profound implications for what we build our most fundamental securities on. Some of us have been very strong atheists and have found faith; others have been very strong people of faith and have been disillusioned and therefore
these subjects evoke strong emotions.
I guess Mike is saying that yes there maybe contradictions, but the fundamental messages preserved within the 4 gospels and other New Testament writings, have fundamental truth. The question I really have to ask you is: accepting that there are contradictions and that some of these contradictions reflect axes to grind, messages to convey and emphases to make, by both the individual NT authors and the ‘scribal alterationists’, are these sufficient to make you doubt 1. the existence of God 2. a divine mission of Jesus to suffer, to bring a message of repentance; to bring a message of love; and to demonstrate an exemplary life lived in service to God, whether or not he was wrong about the timing of the apocalypse and whether or not he fully understood, at an early stage in his ministry, that he was going to be executed and whether or not he felt abandoned by God on the cross? Would he be truly human if he did not feel forsaken?
No, I think biblical contradictions are completely irrelevant to theological claims about the existence of God or the msision of Jesus.
Surely gospel contradictions contribute to you doubting miracles (eg contradictions in the account of Jairus’s daughter); doubting the ressurection of Jesus (eg contradictions in the account of where and to whom appearances occurred); doubting words that Jesus was reputed to have said about his mission (eg Eloi Eloi Lama sabactani vs tetelesti, athough this may be just sequential utterances rather than a real contradiction); doubting the messiahship of Jesus (eg the geneology contradictions); and doubting the atonement aspect of Jesus’s mission (eg the contradictions in the accounts of the tearing of the temple curtain)? If Jesus didn’t perform miracles, didn’t rise from the dead (either phsyically or spiritually) and was crucified unexpetedely and with no divine purpose, then isn’t that evidence against the existence of God?
No, I don’t think the Gospel miracles had any effect on my views of miracles. Once I got over being a fundamentalist I no longer thought that the accuracy of the Bible had any bearing on questions connected with the supernatural. For nme at the time it would be like saying if there were a lot of mistakes in the Chicago phonebook then the Hancock Building must not have existed. Only a fundamentalist would say that recognizing errors in the Bible should make one leave the faith.
I’m oversimplifying here, but in the mid-20th century Reinhold Niebuhr asserted that a story such as Adam and Eve in the Garden was indeed a myth, but it was a myth that told the truth about our finite, fallen, and fallible human nature, and about our complex relationship with God. In other words, we don’t need the stories to be absolutely historically factual in order for us to find them theologically truthful. Whether or not there is a God has nothing at all to do with whether or not Mary was medically a virgin when Jesus was born.
Yup, that is a widely held view among non-fundamentalists, and one that I found extremely valuable as a non-evangelical Christian.
Ahem! I wasn’t talking about Genesis and I wasn’t talking about the virgin birth. Neither are central to Christianity, despite what Mathew, Luke or the Catholic church may say (or ‘J’ for that matter ;-)). Also, the miracle point was the least important of my points. I was talking about alleged contradictions / scribal alterations that impact on the central tenets of Christianity. I think you’ve both errected straw men to batter down.
I find it somewhat amusing, and a bit disturbing, that so may people believe the bible, or any form of human communication, is inerrant. Of course people make mistakes all the time. Why would anyone assume the New Testament authors any any different? Imagine if legal actions were dependent on testimony from several people, all of whom are considered inerrant. The lawyers would tie themselves in knots trying to reconcile different accounts. But the reality is all people can be wrong sometimes, accurate at other times. It is up to the judge and/or jury members to decide which side is likely more correct in order to come to a verdict. And different jury members can disagree on any particular “fact” even if they reach a verdict. And the judge or jury can arrive at a totally wrong conclusion. People who go through such hoops in order to “prove” scripture is inerrant drive me crazy. How can any rational person believe such a thing?
I just cannot comprehend why Mike thinks that explaining why there is a contradiction means that there isn’t any contradiction.
Exactly!
Semantics. It depends What you consider to be the main message of any particular passage and therefore whether a contradiction is a contradiction of that central message, or whether it’s a contradiction of less important peripheral details. The “Staff” being a case in point. The point being the central message is that you don’t need to take much with you because God will provide. Some may have remembered Jesus saying don’t even take a staff and others might of remembered him saying just take a staff – you don’t need anything else. The peripheral detail contradicts, but the central message is the same: “God will provide”.
You had a debate with Mike back in April. I haven’t gotten to watch it yet, but I have seen some reviews on it. (They’re good if you are wondering). It does seem though, that the debate is more on “Is the evidence of the resurrection amazing enough to consider it historical ?” rather than “Did the resurrection happen ?”. You say “no” because miracles are the least possible thing, there are better documented miracles, and the visions could’ve been non verdical. The evidence is just not that great. The resurrection isn’t impossible , you say it’s just the least likely option so it cannot be considered historical. Is this right? If so, I don’t see why fundamental Christian’s cannot accept this. As a Christian, I do. It is the least likely thing but I still have a belief in it…
Also, how many debates do you do year round?
It varies. I do fewer than I’m invited to do. 🙂
!º Part:
The problem with Michael Licona and most Christian apologists is that biblical exegesis must be based on the complete and absolute freedom of those who interpret it when they care.
This is a logical consequence of the Lutheranweltanschauung of Sola sriptura and that the Protestant Reformation changed theological reason (which was understood, to a greater or lesser extent, with the objectivism of dogmas and doctrines promulgated by the Church), for emotional and totally subjective reason. .
In addition, they often resort to the anachronism of trying to classify the different books of the Bible according to literary genres that did not exist at the time they were written.
Trying to find justification for the contradictions, errors and inconsistencies between the four gospels — and within the same gospel — claiming that they belong to the literary genre of the time that we now know as biographies, is nonsense.
The same happens with the attempts to create new literary genres, such as the myth-history promoted by W L Craig, so as not to have to recognize that Genesis is pure epic and mythological literature, totally fictional.
Continue
2º Part (Final)
What these apologetes will never accept is that a rigorous analysis of many texts of the Sacred Scriptures, which go against their blind faith, demand the absolute necessity that they must be read and interpreted literally.
Poverty — or lack — of intellectual honesty makes these apologists start with the conclusion, with what for them are true because they are dogmas of faith, and build (invent, generally) backwards arguments, excuses, distortions and fallacies necessary to deceive those who are willing to be deceived without much effort.
For me, Licona uses two fallacies: ad hominem (attacking Bart) through the use of identity issues (Bart’s not like us and therefore I can’t know what’s going on in his mind….but we believe that….)
and a red herring by transforming the argument from reading what the text says (which would indicate that the Bible has errors in it and may not be divinely inspired or that God is not powerful enough to preserve the Bible from errors). He does this by talking about American male/female acculturation and its effects on how a boy or girl may tell a story. Which I don’t think is correct according to Deborah Tannen who is a very prominent authority on this who I use in the gender portion of my professional ethics class.
His argument doesn’t wash IMO. If he’s arguing that Mark is the detail guy and Matthew just wants to get to the point, then wouldn’t Matthew would leave out the staff altogether ? You’re not saving on detail by changing Mark saying “don’t take a staff” to Matthew saying “do take a staff.” At least that’s how i see it.
It’s like most of the contradictions. You can either let the text speak for itself and take the most likely meaning and you get a contradiction. Or you work hard to re-translate or find an alternate meaning to the most obvious one.
It seems to be always ‘possible’ to find an alternate explanation. But is the alternative likely ? Or is it simply a case that the 2 authors said something completely different. I think the latter.
Occam’s razor comes to mind.
I would like to know if Mark Licona would refer to the works of Plutarch, Josephus and the other historians from antiquity as “inerrant”. Or: are Plutarch and Josephus about as inerrant as Mark, Matthew and Luke?
No, he wouldn’t
How was the proto Orthodox view of the Bible in relation to inerrancy different from today’s Protestant fundamentalists?
It was far less obsessed with the specific words for the most part, and it was not completely committed to an absolutely literal reading (which became important for fundamentalists because of the concerns about teh findings of science, etc.).
This whole discussion turns on how you define the doctrine of inspiration. As I see it, the claim of inerrancy is made because without such a belief there is no clear line of demarkation between what is accurate information and what is not. We are on a sliding scale that allows for any position from 99% accuracy to believing only the details necessary for ‘salvation.’ The conservatives/fundamentalists are very uncomfortable with such a position, and inerrancy, or something close to it, is the only satisfactory choice for them. I would like to know the history of the development of this doctrine in the early church. Where along the line from Paul’s simply writing letters that he never expected to be part of a ‘canon,’ to the present views, did things transition to where people began to see these things as supernatural, inerrant revelations?
The modern idea of inerrancy arose in the 19th century in response to the rise of the natural sciences and the historical study of the Bible; an interesting discussion of how it all happened is in Ernest Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism.
What I would like him to address is his definition of inerrancy, because it doesn’t seem to mean “without error.” I’m thinking it’s more along the lines of “without affecting overarching truth.”
Maybe so! It’s a little hard to pin down.
I understand where Mike is coming from, although I believe the argument is mediocre. At least he has a better argument than some that I have read. “Mark is stating to bring a single staff for them all to share, while Matthew and Luke are expressing not for them to bring a staff each due to the plurality of the text in the KJV.”
As you can see, the desperation could worsen.
The problem I find with Licona’s approach is that it prevents the reader from understanding what the author might have been trying to say or the point he might have been trying to drive home.
Thank you!! I believe you are the first blog read to point this out!! I’m planning on writing a post on it soon. the goal of biblical scholarship is not simply to show that the Gospels all agree. It’s to see what each one *means*. And if they all mean the same thing, then you can throw detailed interpretation out the window.
So this basically comes down to biblical analysis and theology intersecting, right?
Yup, that’s my view. Mike sometimes bases his analysis on his theology but he calls it history.
Exactly, a kind of rhetorical sleight of hand. Whether that is disingenuous or not is hard to say. But I suppose it begins with a stubborn or dogmatic commitment to the theology first, historical facts second, which seems backwards.
He seems to acknowledge redaction at some level, doesn’t he? But almost as if it’s redaction only to restate or ‘simplify’ what the source stated, making the editor less of a theologian.
Yes, he’s definitely affirming redaction. A boy is redacting a girl’s story….
Licona attempts to sweep textual contradictions under the rug with his gist broom. Sure the gist of the commissioning is the same. But there is no way you can say the texts are the same. This is so clear cut, I’m a little puzzled that there is so much discussion about it.
What Mike fails to deal with is that if the Gospels are literally the “Word of God” i.e. dictated by God to the evangelist, even small discrepancies are a problem. He admits and discusses Mathew and Luke as having Mark as their source and talks about how faithfully they recount Mark’s telling. BUt that admits that their source was NOT God! If we are evaluating how Matthew and Luke interpreted Mark, we have already allowed for human error to creep in. If Luke is a retelling of Mark, it was not dictated by God directly to Luke, that is, not the word of God but the interpretation of Luke of the writings of Mark. If it is the work of men interpreting other men, there is room for error. If it is literally “The Word of God” there is no room for error.
He would deny that the Gospels were dictated. Most Christians who believe the BIble is the word of God do not hold to a dictation theory of inspiration.
I think Mike has a tough job.
Indeed! Mike Licona was forced to resign from his position at Southern Evangelical Seminary because he dared to question the literal historicity of the saints rising from their graves in Matthew.
Girl version and guy version? What does that have to do with whether Jesus said to take a staff or not? It’s not abbreviated, it’s different. Matthew didn’t leave something out. He changed it.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you agree with Michael Licona’s understanding of the Gospels belonging to the genre of Greco-Roman biography (bios)?
I find it fascinating how he’s been so tarred and feathered by other evangelicals for admitting there’s myth and embellishments in the Gospels.
Yeah, that’s been a standard view among scholars for nearly 40 years or so. So too his his idea that to understand teh genre you have to read Plutarch and Suetonius, and so on. I’ve been teaching that since the late 1980s. It’s not a revolutionary idea at all. The only thing (big thing) that’s different is that he thinks if an author has a reason to create a contradiction that it is therefore not a contradiction. I think that is a very odd claim.