Loading...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” (in How God Became Jesus; check it out!). 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 on the blog, but I have a sneaking suspicion that these posts have made their way to his computer screen for his reading pleasure) (Hi Craig!).
I am now in a position to consider two final arguments. I have saved these until last because in my opinion they are his strongest ones, and I think most anyone reading his essay will agree. He actually gives rather short shrift to one of them, which strikes me as odd and counter-productive for his own case, since he could have hammered it home. In fact, my view is that he should have written his essay stressing these two arguments and used everything else as auxiliary backups, in very brief order, since in fact on their own none of the others, on close inspection, as I just pointed out, actually seems to carry much (or any) weight.
So, in my next several posts (the final ones of the thread, for which we can all be grateful) I will address the two arguments that are most important: (1) The Jewish historian Josephus appears to say that the Romans allowed Jews to practice their burial customs (whether he actually says that or not will be part of our question); and (2) We have the remains of a crucified victim with a nail still attached to his ankle, showing that *this* crucified Jew, at least, was buried.
Before addressing these important points (neither of which convinces me, as you may have suspected [!]), I realize that I need to provide a bit of background on Josephus, to help make sense both of what Craig says and of my response to him. So, for some very basic background to bring you sufficiently up to speed, in case you’re not already, I include the few introductory comments that I devote to Josephus in another one of my books (my NT textbook). As follows:
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Did Josephus work from other sources or did he just write from memory? (and we know how flawed that can be.)
He certainly had sources of information, both written and oral.
Mr. Ehrman, is there someone else, from the vast pool of your sworn enemies, that you have a sneaking suspicion reads you and feels daunted by your arguments or maybe secretly takes delight in your work and thinking of things (though, he/she wouldn’t admit that, not even to him/her self)?
(My hunch says Mr. Evans belongs to the first category, though he too would never admit it for obvious reasons. And as far as the second category is concerned, I would put Carrier in there – he seems to bring up your name too often).
Ha! I don’t know, but wish I did!
It may come down to who was the governor of Judea at the time. Some may have allowed or overlooked the matter, and some may have forbidden it. From the evidence of Pontius Pilate’s nature, he probably would not have allowed it. Looking forward to more posts on the subject. I’m still making my way through the writings of Josephus, translated by William Whiston from the days of yore which makes it somewhat laborious.
Why would Jews decide to commit suicide was that considered sin in Hebrew or only NT? How do we know Josephus didn’t make Roman’s look better than the actual history, I can’t imagine Josephus could say all kinds of negative things about Roman’s with out fear of being killed.
Suicide isn’t portrayed as a sin in the Hebrew Bible or in the NT. James Tabor and ARthur Droge, in their book A Noble Death, argue that it was not considered a “sin” in the ancient world at all until Augustine came along. And yes, Josephus repeadedly does make the Romans look better than they were, and some groups of Jews that he hated worse.
Is there any independent evidence that Josephus was an historical figure?
Do you mean is he mentioned by anyone else living at the time? Not that I’m aware of. But then again, neither is 99.99% of the population. Given the writings we have, it’s very clear he did exist.
Or one could look to find the bribe to a Centurian to recover a dead body.
Was thieves even ever punished by crucifixion (Matt 27:38, 44).
Would a crucifixion have even been performed on the eve of Passover.
Yes, crucifixion was used against insurrectionists, slaves, and low-life criminals. I don’t think Romans cared much about observing Jewish holidays, but I don’t know of evidence one wya or th eother about Passover.
Pedanticism alert.
“Short shrift.” A curt, often unsympathetic dismissal of an argument/statement/belief.
The original (apparently) context: Shakespeare’s Richard III. A different meaning.
Ratcliffe (to Lord Hastings):
“Dispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner.
Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.” Act III Scene 4: 94-95
Here, “schrift” is the noun form of the verb to shrive: to make or hear confession.
Richard (still Duke of Gloucester) is hungry, wants Hastings (among others, including Richard’s nephews) dead. The toady Ratcliffe urges Hastings to confess his sins hastily the more quickly to meet the ax, thus priming Richard’s appetite.
I have recently finished reading Dr. James Tabor’s “The Jesus Dynasty” and found that the book created more questions than answers. In it, Tabor recounts the discovery of Talpiot tomb (potentially belonging to the family of Jesus) and the relevant names on the various ossuaries within this tomb. However, other researchers have indicated that Jesus’ family would not of been able to afford these types of burial options. I assume that Josephus would be familiar with the more costly (tomb) burial scenarios and might not of paid close attention to the working-class burial (pit/cave) processes. Outside of Joseph of Arimathea, is there any consensus of when ANY early Jewish Jesus follower might have been able to afford, or even allowed to possess, a rock-cut tomb and/or ossuary? The whole tomb/burial topic seems somewhat out of place with the general Jesus-ministry-era narratives, where possessing a tomb would seem a bit obscene and pointless in lieu of the coming apocalypse.
There were wealthy followers of Jesus a few decades after his death (certainly in Corinth, e.g.), but the Jerusalem Christians were known for a very long time to be poor. Joseph of Armimathea, of course, is not portrayed as one of Jesus’ own followers, but as a member of hte Sanhedrin.
Was Luke most likely poor? I mean the apostle not the author of the gospel
Presumably, but we don’t have any information.
Okay
Do we have any sense of how Josephus was viewed by other Jews at the time? Was he viewed as a traitor?
It depends when “at the time” was. Before his surrender, he was a major figure in the social and spolitical life of Judea. I don’t know how long after his surrender he came to be seen as a turncoat, but possibly not long. He’s still portayed that way often today.
The Oxford Annotated Bible in the introduction of James wrote the following.
Luther’s treatment of the letter of James made it difficult to hear the letter on its own terms. While 2.14–26 may be a reaction against libertine readings of Paul’s teaching that justification was “by faith apart from works” (Rom 3.28), both ancient and many modern scholars are less clear that James and Paul are in fundamental disagreement with each other. Both see faith primarily as trust in God (Rom 4.5; Jas 1.5–6), and both argue that faith should shape one’s manner of life (Rom 2.13; Phil 2.12–13; Jas 2.18). Yet issues of justification do not pervade the letter as a whole.
Does this imply that Paul also regards both faith and works as significant, similar to how James does?
Yes, it means that both valued “faith” and “works” both. My view is that they mean different things by both terms. For Paul “faith” is a trusting relation with God, trusting that he will do as promised; for James it is an intellectual accpetane of Christian beliefs about God and Christ; for Paul “works” refers to doing the things that the law requires Jews to do to be the people of God (circumcision, sabbath, kashrut, etc.); James is talking about doing good deeds. So in a lot of ways they’re tlaking past each other. Maybe I’ll post on this!
I’ve read quotations from him for as long as I can remember, but I had no idea that Josephus had such an interesting life. I’ll have to read more about him. Maybe I can find a good biography to read.
He wrote an autobiography that we still have!