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Ancient Forerunners of Modern Gospel Critics
In my previous post I argued that critical scholars who insist that the Gospels are not historically accurate accounts of what happened in the life of Jesus – even though they do contain some historically accurate information, which needs to be carefully and cautiously ferretted out of their narratives – are not trashing the Gospels. They are trashing unfounded fundamentalist assumptions about the Gospels. In this post I’d like to argue that this view — that the Gospels are not sacrosanct-historically-accurate-to-the-very-detail accounts of what really happened in the life of Jesus — is not merely a modern notion that emerged during the Enlightenment. It is that, to be sure; but it’s not merely that. In fact, I would argue that this is the earliest attested view of the Gospels from earliest Christianity. Let’s assume for this argument a view that most scholars hold and that I could demonstrate if I wanted to spend a lot of time doing so, that Mark was the first of our Gospels and that Matthew and Luke both had access […]
Tags: Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Matthew
July 14, 2014
Why the Critical View of the Gospels Matters Theologically/Religiously
In my two previous posts I’ve been trying to explain that the historical-critical view of the Gospels, in which they are recognized not always to represent historically accurate information about Jesus, is not necessarily a view that “trashes” them. Instead, it is a view that tries to understand what they really are instead of insisting that they are something else. Accepting them for what they are is surely a good thing; making them into something they are not can’t be good. In this post I want to do something highly unusual for me. I want to explain, for those of your who are Christians (or for anyone else who is interested), why this critical view of the Gospels is in fact *theologically* valuable, far more theologically value than a view that would insist that the Gospels have no discrepancies between them or errors of any kind, but are historically accurate accounts of what happened in the life of Jesus. When I was a Christian, once I came to the conclusion that the Gospels in fact […]
Tags: Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Mark
July 15, 2014
Discrepancies That Pay Rich Dividends
This will be the last post in the hiatus I have been taking from responding to Craig Evans’s critique of my view of Jesus’ burial. I had thought this hiatus would be one, maybe two posts; but as often happens on this blog, once I get going on something I realize that I have to say more — or else what little I have to say will not make much sense. So my couple of posts have turned into four, all on the question of whether the historical-critical approach that I take to the Gospels is “trashing them,” as a lot of people seem to think, or if, instead, it is a valuable tool for understanding what these books really are – literary attempts to teach important theological lessons about Jesus based on stories about his life – rather than what they are not – historically accurate, objective biographies of the things that Jesus said and did. In the last post I argued that the two portrayals of Jesus going to his death in Mark […]
Tags: Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Mark
July 16, 2014
Did Pontius Pilate Respect Jewish Sensitivities?
When I was in high school I was active on the debate team, and really loved it. We were pretty good, although I was nowhere near being the best on the team. My colleague and another fellow on the team ended up debating together in college and won the national championship as sophomores. These guys were terrific. One of the decisions we constantly had to make when arguing the negative side of a resolution was how to go about attacking the claims of the affirmative side. There were two general approaches: one was what we called the “shotgun” approach. This involved leveling lots and lots of arguments (like buckshot) and hoping that the other side could not respond to them all, thereby making the judge of the debate think that some of the arguments stuck, even if not all of them were that good. The problem with the shotgun approach was that if a bunch of the arguments weren’t very good, the affirmative side could knock them down fairly easily, and by the end, it […]
Tags: Craig Evans, Josephus, Pontius Pilate
July 17, 2014
Did Pilate “Learn His Lesson”?
I think there is almost no historical figure that Craig and I disagree on more than the Roman governor of Judea at the time of Jesus’ death, Pontius Pilate. I see him as a cruel, vicious, hard-headed, insensitive, and brutal ruler; Craig portrays him as an efficient but wise and rather sensitive aristocrat who could learn from his lessons and who would go out of his way not to offend Jewish sensibilities. A lot hangs on which view (if either) is right, since it was Pilate – we agree on this! – who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion. Moreover, if Jesus was given a decent burial (Craig’s view) or was left to hang on the cross for some time in accordance with standard Roman practice (my view), it was, in either case, Pilate’s decision. Craig’s view is that Pilate’s sensitive decision not to allow crucified victims to hang on their crosses after their deaths is what allowed him to keep “the nation at peace” (the phrase comes from the Jewish historian Josephus, whom I will be dealing […]
Tags: Craig Evans, Josephus, Pontius Pilate
July 18, 2014
Pilate the Intransigent
To make the best sense of this post it is important to keep in mind what I said in the previous one. In his response to my views of in How Jesus Became God – that Jesus most likely was not given a decent burial on the day of his crucifixion by Joseph of Arimathea – Craig Evans has maintained, among other things, that Pilate was not the kind of governor who would ignore Jewish sensitivities. For Craig, Pilate started his rule by making a big mistake of bringing into Jerusalem the Roman standards that bore on them the image of the emperor. But once he realized that the Jewish populace was offended, he backed down and from then on he showed that he had learned his lesson. For that reason, Craig finds it “hard to believe” that at a later time Pilate would do something so opposed to Jewish custom as allow a body unburied on the day of a person’s death. This view strikes me as extremely problematic, for several reasons. To start […]
Tags: Craig Evans, Pontius Pilate
July 19, 2014
Discovered Crucifixion Nails
I have mentioned a couple of times that at the end of this thread I will be discussing the two arguments that Craig Evans marshals that strike me as interesting and to be taken seriously. These are (1) the general claims in a couple of passages of Josephus and (2) the discovery of the skeletal remains of a crucified victim. Even though these are, in my opinion, good arguments, I will explain why I do not find them persuasive. Up till now I have been dealing with the arguments that Craig advances that I do not find at all convincing — for example, that Roman governors on rare occasions showed clemency for lower level crimes and that Pilate was not the kind of person to offend Jewish sensitivities. I have one more argument of this sort to deal with. It is one that may sound highly convincing to someone who has only Craig’s summary at hand but who does not know the facts of case. This argument does not involve historical literary sources (Philo or […]
Tags: Joe Zias
July 21, 2014
Being Consistently Critical (in the good sense)
I know that by now I’m supposed to be citing Craig Evans’s best arguments that Jesus was probably given a decent burial on the day of his crucifixion by Joseph of Arimathea, rather than being left hanging on the cross for a few days in accordance with standard Roman practice. But I’ve realized that before I get to the first of these arguments, I have to say something about how historians need to use their ancient sources. The short answer to that question is that they need to use them … gingerly. And consistently gingerly. This perspective will not come as a surprise to anyone who has read this blog for a long while and seen how I think we need, consistently, to use the books of the New Testament itself as sources for what actually happened in the past – whether we are considering the Gospels for knowing about what Jesus really said and did, or considering the book of Acts for knowing about the life and teachings of Paul, or considering the letters […]
Tags: historical criticism
July 22, 2014
Another Anecdote about Being Consistently Critical
As I was thinking today about the need to be consistently critical with all of our sources – not just the ones we want to be critical of (this was the topic of yesterday’s post, with an ultimate view of what I want to say about Josephus as a possible witness to the practice of Jews burying their executed dead on the days of their deaths) — another anecdote occurred to me that I thought might help illustrate my point. Here it is. In the next post I get to Josephus, I promise. As some of you know, I have had a number of debates with evangelical Christians on the question of whether we know what the original writings of the New Testament actually said. The typical line from these evangelical Christians is that since we have so *many* surviving manuscripts of the NT, that we can be almost completely certain that we know what the authors wrote in the vast majority of cases (virtually all). My view is that we simply cannot know for […]
Tags: critical scholarship
July 23, 2014
Josephus and the Burial of Jesus
I have devoted a large number of posts to going carefully through the main arguments that Craig Evans makes in his critique of the position I take in How Jesus Became God with respect to the burial tradition, in his essay, “Getting the Burial Traditions and Evidences Right.” To this point I have been trying to argue that the accumulation of arguments in and of itself does not constitute a “cumulative argument.” Each of the accumulated arguments has to carry *some* weight if the overall argument is to carry *much* (or a lot of) weight. And in my judgment, none of the arguments that I have adduced and responded to so far carries much, if any, weight. Some of you will probably disagree with me, and that’s fine. But I do hope that I’ve shown that I’m not the uninformed skeptic that Craig portrays in his essay. At times, reading it, I felt like I was being lectured to. On the other hand, maybe Craig feels the same way in reading my responses (he’s not […]
July 24, 2014
Hiatus: A New Teaching Company Course
Another brief hiatus as we near the end of my thread on the burial traditions of Jesus, occasioned by the inquiries of several members of the blog, and others not on the blog, about my new course for the Teaching Company (the company is also called The Great Courses). A couple of days ago my new course on “How Jesus Became God” came out. It is obviously based (roughly) on the book of the same title. The Course consists of twenty-four lectures, each thirty minutes in length, and as with all the Great Courses, it is available in numerous formats: on CD for audio only, or DVD for video, or as a download, and so on. For a quick link: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6522 You’ll see that it is right now being offered at a serious discount. One hint about the Teaching Company courses: ALWAYS buy them at discount! (They all get discounted on and off.) These are the titles of each of the lectures: 1 Jesus—The Man Who Became God 2 Greco-Roman Gods Who Became Human 3 […]
Tags: historical jesus, How Jesus Became God
July 26, 2014
Does Josephus Show that Jews Always Buried Their Dead?
I have not covered all of the points that Craig Evans makes in his essay “Getting the Burial Traditions and Evidences Right,” which is his response to the position I stake out in How Jesus Became God. My view is that Jesus probably was not given a decent burial on the day of his death by the otherwise unknown figure, Joseph of Arimathea. In this thread I have tried to focus on Craig’s main points – but I will be happy to address any of the others if anyone is interested. In my judgment, despite all the various issues he raises there are really only two of that are directly relevant and that need to be taken with utmost seriousness: Josephus appears to say that Jews were allowed to bury their dead (Craig makes two arguments about this) and we have the skeletal remains of one crucified victim from Judea at about the time of Jesus. First I’ll be dealing with the evidence from Josephus. My view is that of the two arguments Craig makes, […]
Tags: burial practices, crucifixion, Josephus
July 27, 2014
More on Josephus and Jewish Burial Practices
In my previous post I began to deal with the first of two arguments that Craig Evans provides from Josephus. Craig wants to argue that Josephus, a first-century Jewish authority, explicitly indicates that Romans allowed Jews to provide decent burials for their dead. In this first argument Craig provides a concatenation of passages from Josephus that together, Craig argues, indicate that Jews would not leave a corpse (such as that of Jesus) on the cross, but would provide a burial for it. Here is the argument again. “Josephus asserts the same thing. The Romans, he says, do not require “their subjects to violate their national laws” (Against Apion 2.73). The Jewish historian and adds that the Roman procurators who succeeded Agrippa I “by abstaining from all interference with the customs of the country kept the nation at peace” (Jewish War 2.220), customs that included never leaving a “corpse unburied” (Against Apion 2.211). I dealt with the first quotation in yesterday’s post, where I pointed out that in Against Apion Josephus is not referring to burial […]
Tags: burial practices, crucifixion, Josephus
July 28, 2014
Josephus’s Clearest Claim about the Burial of Crucified Victims
We come now, at last, to the best argument in Craig Evans’ arsenal, in his attack on the views of Jesus’ burial that I set forth in in How Jesus Became God. Tomorrow I will deal with the second best – an argument from archaeology. Craig makes a somewhat bigger deal of the second best; in fact he throws off this, his best argument rather quickly. But it’s the most important point of the many (many!) issues he raises. The argument is this. In one passage of Josephus’s writings, in an extremely brief few words (it’s only half of one sentence) (this is the only half sentence in the entire corpus not only of Josephus’s 30 volumes of writing but in the entire corpus of pagan and Jewish literature of all of antiquity that makes this claim) he explicitly indicates that Jews buried victims of crucifixion before sunset. Craig’s commentary on the passage amounts only to two sentences. At the end of the day I don’t find even this piece of evidence persuasive, and in […]
Tags: burial practices, crucifixion, Josephus
July 29, 2014
The Skeletal Remains of Yehohanan and Their Significance
I plan to make this the last post responding to Craig Evans’s article, “Getting the Burial Traditions and Evidences Right,” in which he attempts to refute my argument in How Jesus Became God, that Jesus was probably not given a decent burial on the day of his crucifixion. Several readers have asked me interesting questions about this or that thing that I’ve said, and I may try to answer these questions in a few days or, well, eventually; but for now, this will be my last post on it. It think maybe this thread has been more than enough! I have dealt with a wide range of Craig’s arguments, and have saved his two strongest arguments for last. In my last post I dealt with the claim of Josephus that Jews (always? usually? sometimes?) buried crucifixion victims before sunset, and I showed that as a general statement it simply isn’t true, and argued that in any event it would not have applied to a case such as that of Jesus, one who was crucified as […]
Tags: crucifixion, ossuaries, Yehohanan
July 31, 2014
About the Blog
I have now finished with my extensive comments on Jesus’ burial. Some of you may be relieved to hear that. I know I am! That was the most intense thread that I’ve done on the blog since its inception over two years ago. It was really more like producing scholarship than anything else I’ve done. And I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. So now I can move on to other things on the blog. If you weren’t really into that more hard-core kind of thing, then I hope that the sorts of things that I’ll be doing now for a while will strike your fancy. I thought this would be a good time to pause and think a bit about the blog, and to hear your ideas and suggestions for it. As probably everyone on the blog knows, I have two major objectives in doing it, one far more major than the other. The one that is *less* major for me is the one that is *more* major for virtually everyone else. I […]
August 1, 2014
Follow-up Apologies for the Post on Dinesh D’Souza
I was completely taken aback when I got up this morning (I’m in London – five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time) to check my blog and Facebook pages to find that I caused a bit of a firestorm by my comments on Dinesh D’Souza when in yesterday’s post I introduced the video of the debate that I had had with him a couple of years ago. That was not my intention at *all* and I’m non-plussed, surprised, and embarassed. All sides of the political spectrum have reacted strongly – rabid liberals hee-hawing and rabid conservatives fuming and others weighing in one way or the other. Woops. Not what I had in mind. Now that I re-read my opening comments, I see how they are being read, and they are not being read in the way that I meant them. But I need to apologize to Dinesh and to anyone else I have offended. My intention was *not* to badmouth Dinesh, whom I like on a personal level even if absolutely not on the political. […]
Tags: debates, dinesh d'souza
August 3, 2014
After the New Testament: Women in Early Christianity
Among other things, I am spending a chunk of each day just now reading the page proofs for the second edition of my anthology After the New Testament. “Page proofs” are the type-set pages as they are ready to appear in the printed book. This is the last chance an author has to catch mistakes, typos, and so on. The new edition of this book is fairly long– over 550 pages – and reading proofs is one of the very least interesting parts of the job. It’s a serious pain in the neck. The press also (typically – depending on the press) employs a proof-reader; but no one can catch everything, and there are certainly typographical errors that will not be caught. In the first edition of this particular book, in the opening lines of the Gospel of Peter, where “King Herod,” Jesus arch-enemy, is introduced, my text was printed as “Kind Herod.” Ai yai yai…. In any event, as I mentioned back in January, and then again in May, there are sixteen chapters in […]
Tags: women in the church
August 5, 2014
National Cathedral Lecture – Misquoting Jesus
Here is a version of my lecture “Misquoting Jesus.” Some of you have seen a different version of the lecture (I’m sure I’ve posted one!); I’m particularly fond of this particular one, both because of its setting in the Washington National Cathedral and because, well, I just think I was on better form than usual. The lecture was given on Feb. 6, 2007.
Tags: Misquoting Jesus, National Cathedral lecture
August 10, 2014
ANT: More on Women in Early Christianity
I’m nearly finished reading the page proofs for the second edition of After the New Testament. Gods willing, I finish tomorrow – a good thing, because I’m heading out of town (well, I’m already out of town; so I’m heading out of town out of town) to do some hiking. I’ll be able to keep the blog up (let’s hear it for wi-fi!). But proof reading is outta the question! Anyway, yesterday I gave the first half of the Introduction to one of the new sections in the second edition of the book (that I call ANT), on Women in Early Christianity. You may want to reread that bit from yesterday if it’s not fresh in your mind. Here’s the final part of the Introduction. (Please note: I give a very small bibliography at the end. The reason it is so small: it is for college students in a beginning course. Many of you will probably want to suggest other readings. I too would like to suggest more – lots more! But my idea is […]
Tags: women in the church
August 6, 2014