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There Are No Contradictions in the Gospels! The Response by Matthew Firth
As promised, this is Matthew Firth’s (2019) response to my post (the previous one) in which I try to show several places in the Gospels that contain contradictions. Firth does not see a contradiction in any of the five examples I cited, and explains why, contrary to first appearance, the accounts are completely in line with each other. Read him carefully and see what you think (To make sense of his reply you may want to see what he is responding to in the previous post, but … hey, follow your heart.) ****************************** Thank-you very much, Bart, for your opening gambit. It has given me a most enjoyable afternoon of delving deeply into the Gospel texts, and I really appreciate the written format of this debate, which allows space for considered reflection, study and learning, rather than the rhetorical tennis of some other formats of debate which, while they produce spectacle, rarely achieve deep insight either for the proponents or the onlookers. I will now take the cases in the order in which you proposed […]
June 25, 2022
Yeah, Those Are Contradictions. My Response to Firth.
Matthew Firth came up with interesting responses to my examples of contradictions in the Gospels (in the previous post); here now I try to show how his explanations simply don’t work. ****************************** Thanks, Matt, for your thoughtful comments on the four contradictions I discussed in my opening post. I agree – this form of debate is much better than the oral back-and-forths I’m used to on a stage in front of an audience, where it’s so easy to say something unwittingly that is completely stupid or wrong. With this format I’m able to think about it a bit before saying something completely stupid! I appreciate your attempts to reconcile the contradictions. For years I wished I could reconcile all the ones I found – and did my best to do so, using many of these kinds of arguments. I ended up thinking it just didn’t work. I’ll try to explain below why I think so, step by step. I’ve decided that it would be easier for readers of the blog to be able to compare […]
June 26, 2022
Digging Deep into Afterlife Journeys
I don’t recall *ever* having a podcast interview in which I was asked to go down seriously into the weeds of my scholarship as found in one of my scholarly books. But that happened in this interview, done on June 14, for the Christian Humanist Podcast. It’s a serious podcast, where the perspective is Christian and the topics are intellectually meaty. The interviewer is a PhD in English literature and professor at Emmanuel College. He’s a bright guy, who knows a lot, who read my book Journeys to Heaven and Hell carefully, realized clearly what both the scholarly issues and the wider payoff were, and grilled me on it for an hour. Here’s the podcast for your viewing pleasure.
June 29, 2022
Time Again: Vote on your favorite Platinum Post
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June 14, 2022
Blog Dinner in London? Interested?
I’m heading over the pond today and would like to do a blog dinner if anyone’s interested. Possibly a pint in advance. Are you over there? Interested? If we can get 3-4 (and no more than 7) people together, I’d be happy to do it. It would be next Thursday, June 23 (2022!), somewhere in central London. No obligations other than: Being a blog member Showing up Talking Paying for your meal. If you’re interested, do NOT reply here as a comment. Send me an email at [email protected] Hope it happens! I may be able to do another one in a few weeks, depending on … life.
June 15, 2022
What Did Jesus Say at the Last Supper?
Here is a seemingly simple but inordinately complicated question I received from a read on the blog: QUESTION: Although the gospel of Luke doesn’t have an atonement message, what are your thoughts about Acts 20:28: “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood”? This sure sounds like it has atonement implications. RESPONSE: When I got the question my idea was to give a direct and simple response. But I realized that would be neither easy nor satisfying. It would take a post. But then I realized that wouldn’t be enough either: it would take several posts. So, right – this will be a thread. I begin with some background. I have dealt with this particular question about Acts 20:28 only once in my life, to my recollection (never on the blog, I believe), in my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. To set up that discussion I need to […]
July 2, 2022
How Do You Decide What an Author Actually Wrote? The Last Supper
In my previous post I started to discuss a textual variant that I covered in my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, a very important variant for understanding Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days, for grasping Luke’s view of the importance of Jesus’ death, and for seeing how scribes occasionally modified their texts for theological reasons. The passage has to do with what Jesus said and did at the Last Supper. Here is the form of the text as found in most of the manuscripts. (I have put verse numbers in the appropriate places) 17 And he took a cup and gave thanks, and he said: “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you that from now on I will not drink from the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.” 19 And taking bread he gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body that is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20 Likewise after supper (he took) the […]
July 3, 2022
Does Luke Get Rid of the Atonement?
In my previous post I tried to argue that the longer version of the account of Jesus’ Last Supper in Luke could have been created by a scribe who wanted to make the passage sound more like what is familiar from Matthew, Mark, and John, and to stress the point made in those other accounts as well, that Jesus’ broken body and shed blood are what bring redemption. The passage as you recall reads like this: 17 And he took a cup and gave thanks, and he said: “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you that from now on I will not drink from the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.” 19 And taking bread he gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body that is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20 Likewise after supper (he took) the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood that is shed for you. 21 […]
July 5, 2022
If Jesus’ Death Was Not an Atonement: Why Did He Die??
I have been dealing with the question of Jesus’ death in the Gospel of Luke and have been arguing that Luke does not appear to have understood Jesus’ death to be an atonement for sins. He has eliminated the several indications from his source, the Gospel of Mark, that Jesus’ death was an atonement, and he never indicates in either his Gospel or the book of Acts that Jesus died “for” you or “for” others or “for” anyone. Then why did Jesus die? It is clear that Luke thought that Jesus had to die. For Luke it was all part of God’s plan. But why? What is the theological meaning of Jesus’ death for Luke, if it was not a sacrifice that brought about a right standing before God (which is what the term “atonement” means)? You get the clearest view of Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ death from the speeches delivered by the apostles in the book of Acts. As you probably know, Acts is about the spread of the Christian church throughout the Roman Empire after […]
July 6, 2022
Does Luke Have Contradictory Views of the Atonement?
I return now to the seemingly simple but inordinately complicated question I received that has led to this short thread over the past week or so on Luke’s understanding of why Jesus died. In the thread so far (in case you haven’t read it) I’ve argued that Luke (author of both the Gospel and Acts) did not have a doctrine of atonement. He certainly thought that Jesus had to die: but Jesus’ death is not what brought a reconciliation with God (= salvation) per se. It made people realize their personal guilt before God, leading them to repent. Because they repented, God then forgave them. Jesus’ death, in other words, was a motivation to return to God, it was not a bloody sacrifice that took away sins. With that as background: here again is the question. QUESTION: Although the gospel of Luke doesn’t have an atonement message, what are your thoughts about Acts 20:28 [were Paul is recorded as saying:] Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit […]
July 7, 2022
A Skeptical View of Life … From the Bible!
To celebrate the tenth-year anniversary of the blog on this past April 18, I’ve been posting all the previous April 18 posts. This one is from 2020; in it I discuss one of my favorite books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes. The post was originally part of a series of posts on “Wisdom Literature” in the OT, as I indicate at the outset. ****************************** In my previous post I pointed to the “Wisdom” literature of the Old Testament (usually said to comprise Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes), suggesting that this is a good time for all of us to ingest some wisdom from those who went before. The book of Ecclesiastes has long been my favorite in the Old Testament. It seems so modern in so many ways. Even though written over 2000 years ago, it considers ageless questions about what the *point* of it all is. If you don’t know it, it’s worth reading; it won’t take long. If you do know it, it’s worth reading again. To provide some orientation to the overall theme of […]
June 28, 2022
What’s the Point? Hey, *IS* There a Point? The Book of Ecclesiastes
In a previous post I began talking about the distinctive views of the book of Ecclesiastes, one of the real gems of the Hebrew Bible, a book that refuses to accept easy answers or blithe truisms about life, but faces reality head on. No matter what we do or how we try to explain it away, life is short. Very very short. The author of course had no conception of what we know now about time in relation to lifespan. What would he say if he knew that the world (what we would call the universe — something about which also he had no knowledge) was not a few thousand years old but 13.8 billion? My guess is that he would say the same thing he already does, but possibly with a few more exclamation points. Given how incredibly brief our life is, even if we live to “old” age — what’s the point of it? Is there a point? I think there is. And I find not just value but also hope in his […]
June 30, 2022
Onan the Barbarian: How an obscure Bible character affected reproductive rights. Platinum Guest post by Douglas Wadeson MD
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June 24, 2022
Early Christianity and War. Guest Post by Dan Kohanski
As you may know, Platinum level members of the blog are allowed to make guest posts to their fellow Platinum members, and periodically they vote on one to be posted for all blog members. Here is the most recent winning post, by Dan Kohanski. (You may want to check out the benefits that accrue to the different levels of membership, and consider moving to a different level! Just go here: Register – The Bart Ehrman Blog )! In this post Dan treats a perennially important topic: how ancient people (including biblical authors) understood the legitimacy of war, particularly in light of their specific historical and cultural contexts. What could be of more on-going relevance? Dan will be happy to address questions and comments. ******************************* The history of how religions approach war is evidence that theology is a product of reaction to events rather than the application of eternal and unchanging laws. Look at the ancient Israelites, who lived in a period of endemic local wars, in which one petty kingdom after another (including those […]
July 12, 2022
Mike Licona’s Response to My Post on Contradictions
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 […]
July 9, 2022
Did Jesus Insist on Voluntary Poverty?
I am returning now to my discussion of understandings of wealth and charity in the early Christian tradition, as I think through how I want to draft my prospectus on a book on that topic for my publisher. If you want to see the earlier posts on views of wealth and giving in the Roman world (which stand in stark contrast with what arose in Christianity), just do a word search for “wealth” on the blog and you’ll see all the recent articles. Now I move to the views of the historical Jesus and his followers; after that, in subsequent posts, I’ll talk about how these views changed significantly over (Christian) time, and consider the real life practical effects they had in understanding the importance of helping the poor in the Western world. ************************ The later Christian discourse appealed to such traditions as found in the Hebrew Bible, but it found yet greater impetus in the recorded teachings of Jesus. For the purposes of my analysis, it is important to remember that historical scholars can […]
July 10, 2022
Blog Dinner. London. Tuesday, July 12. Interested?
We had to cancel the last proposed London blog dinner because of the rail strike, but now I’d like to make a second go of it, if anyone’s interested. Possibly a pint in advance. Are you in the vicinity? Interested? If we can get 3-4 (and no more than 7) people together, I’d be happy to do it. It would be Tuesday, July 12, somewhere in central London. No obligations other than: Being a blog member Showing up Talking Paying for what you consume. If you’re interested, do NOT reply here as a comment. Send me an email at [email protected] Hope it happens!
June 28, 2022
Which James in Galatians? Platinum Guest Post by Gregory Hartzler-Miller
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July 2, 2022
Softening Jesus’ Message on Giving up (Literally) Everything
In my previous post I showed that Jesus himself appears to have taught that his disciples (not just one or two of them) had to give up *everything* in order to be his followers. Most likely this insistence on voluntary poverty was related to his message that the Kingdom of God was to arrive soon, so people needed to devote themselves entirely to it and to spread the message before it was too late. It is difficult to imagine that the Christian mission would have become massively successful if an entrance requirement was the complete divestment of property and a life of itinerate beggary. It is no surprise that after Jesus’ death (most of) his followers modified his discourse on wealth: what mattered was not voluntary abject poverty but generosity. That view came to be endorsed in later Gospel traditions – sayings placed on Jesus’ lips by story tellers and Gospel writers– and became the standard view among Christians down till today. Already in Luke’s Gospel we find Jesus’ encounter with the fabulously wealthy Zacchaeus […]
July 13, 2022
“Redemptive Gifts”: Can Giving to Charity Save Your Soul?
In my previous post I began to show that after Jesus’ death, his followers started to soften his message that it was necessary for his followers to give up all their material goods. In fact, Christian leaders started seeing the virtue of wealth in their communities and began to claim that wealthy people who gave of their goods generously (without getting rid of them all) could help provide salvation for their souls. Such views become standard within the Christian tradition, creating two intriguing ironies for the religion, one related to the proclamation of Jesus during his life and other connected to the proclamation of the salvation he brought by his death. Jesus’ own views of wealth came to be reversed by his later followers, making it possible for them to increase their numbers in a world not at all likely to follow his example and message of voluntary poverty for the sake of the kingdom. On the other hand, precisely these missionary successes led subsequent generations of Christians to modify the original Christian understanding of […]
July 14, 2022