Timothy and Lydia McGrew wrote a mega-essay on the Resurrection of Jesus (you can read it for free here). The essay is almost like “The Case for Christ” with fancy mathematics, and just as convincing. The article would seem intimidating at first, if only because a kind of verbal diarrhea of assertions and half-made arguments are sputtered rapid-fire throughout the first half of the chapter. If you can, stop your self from the feeling of being overwhelmed and confused by that tactic, and begin the process of slowly and carefully examining each argument. When you do that, you realize the entire case being made is evangelical nonsense.
So, let’s get down to it! The McGrews observe that:
“A favorite tactic of the adversaries of Christianity in the eighteenth century… is to point to various discrepancies, real or imagined, in the telling of the same story and to conclude that the texts contradict each other and therefore are untrustworthy at best and worthless at worst.
The McGrews go on to point out that the discrepancies can be exaggerated and multiplied by the use of “arguments from silence” which are arguments that assume that because some piece of information was not mentioned by an author, that therefore the author did not know such an event occurred (or, more strongly, that the author believed the event NEVER occurred). The McGrews add that such arguments from silence are “tenuous” and that,
“By such reasoning we can easily find ‘contradictions’ even in the writings of one and the same historian, as when Josephus mentions facts in his Antiquities that we might have expected him to repeat in his Jewish Wars (Paley, 1859, p. 337). When we extend it to the comparison of multiple authors who treat of the same subject, the results are ridiculous… [I]t is a risky business to speculate upon the motives of authors for including or omitting various facts. To create an appearance of inconsistency by this device, or by such means to justify elaborate hypotheses regarding editors and recensions of the gospels, is methodologically unsound.”
The McGrews go on to offer up the old “The contradictions prove the testimony of the gospels was independent…” argument, and finally they remind us that their case for the resurrection will not rest itself upon simply assuming that the gospel’s reports are true.
So let’s take these assertions, one at a time.
An argument from silence is just a special type of argument from absence. An argument from absence is just what it sounds like: an argument in which not seeing something is used as evidence to argue for or against some conclusion. The usual counterpoint to these arguments is that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. PZ Myers provides a perfect reply to this canard:
“[Absence of evidence] is just evidence of variable strength, from laughably weak (I have no evidence of a teapot in orbit around the sun, which isn’t a very strong case since no one has looked for an orbiting teapot, and it’s a tiny target in a vast volume anyway) to extremely strong (there are no dragons in my backyard; I have looked, and there are no large firebreathing reptiles gnawing on virgins back there).”
We can apply PZ’s method to the gospels and to Paul easily. Some parables, some miracles, are reported in one or two gospels and are never reported again. That’s easy enough to understand. If Jesus was always going around performing healings and teaching wisdom we could expect that certain examples would not be known or remembered or written about to each gospel author. So I won’t spend time arguing for a contradiction based on silence unless I think that the silence is very unlikely and peculiar for the writer, given that he knew about the facts in question.
To give you an example: the Gospel of Matthew reports that a bunch of saints rose from the dead and wandered around the city when Jesus was crucified. No other gospel reports this “night of the living dead” scene, which is a little odd since one would think that this would’ve been one of the most astonishing and gut-wrenching events that would’ve stuck in the minds of those who saw it… That is, unless the event is a fiction by Matthew. And things get even worse: even if the silence of the other gospel writers doesn’t affect you, then riddle me this: why is the zombie-fest of Matthew, surely one of the most chilling, shocking, and ripe-for-story-telling event in history not mentioned by any historian during any decade ever? You reckon maybe it just didn’t happen?
Another example: Take a look at the Easter narratives in the gospels. Mark says the women saw a young man but does not mention the women seeing Jesus at or near the tomb. Matthew says the women saw an angel. Luke says they saw two men. John says they saw two angels, and adds that Mary finds Jesus (upon leaving?) the tomb. No apologist can reconcile these by using the old line: “Well, Mark didn’t say that there was only one man, or that the man wasn’t an angel disguised as a man, and it doesn’t say that Mary definitely did not see Jesus on her tomb visit, so there’s no contradiction. You’re just arguing from silence.” The whole thing is absurd.
What about the McGrews’ claim that “By such reasoning [arguments from silence] we can easily find ‘contradictions’ even in the writings of one and the same historian, as when Josephus mentions facts in his Antiquities that we might have expected him to repeat in his Jewish Wars (Paley, 1859, p. 337).” [words in brackets are my addition for clarity].
I’ve found the original document written by William Paley and read the relevant part of it. Click here to read it yourself. It is strange that the McGrews refer to Paley, since Paley doesn’t lay out this argument himself, but simply refers us to “Lard. part i. vol. ii. p.735 et. seq”. Not very helpful. From what I have gathered, this reference probably refers to some work of 18th century Christian apologist Nathaniel Lardner. But which book does Paley refer to? Perhaps it is part i. vol. ii of “The Credibility of the Gospel History”? But that book, insofar as I found on googlebooks, doesn’t have more than 700 pages (which is a problem since Paley refers us to page 735). What to do? I’m not sure. But I shouldn’t have to chase down a source like this. The McGrews could’ve done a better job of citing specific examples in Josephus of what they mean. Or they could’ve at least given a source which actually does list such examples.
The McGrews further argue that minor differences and small contradictions on matters of detail prove that the witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection were not in collusion, and therefore the contradictions are actually beneficial to their case for the resurrection! Not so fast, say I. I’m not arguing for collusion. But the contradictions we’ve seen here are not just simple differences like “Was Jesus’ robe purple or scarlet?” If this was the only sort of contradiction in the gospel narratives, the McGrews would be completely correct in their point that little differences can add strength to their case. But it isn’t, as demonstrated above.
And what we’ve discussed does affect their case very seriously. Yes, contradictions, especially really serious ones that we’ve been discussing, don’t mean that “nothing at all happened that Easter morning.” But it does mean that our only sources on the issue are wildly unreliable, which is not encouraging for someone who must rely solely on them to prove an extraordinary claim of a miracle.
The McGrews continue:
“The chief requirement for this theory of literary layers is time – time for originals to be gradually edited into a radically different form, time for the development of miracle legends, time for the evolution of John’s high Christology that could be grafted onto a set of original simple parables and sayings of Jesus or for those sayings to be midrashically expanded without the fact’s attracting notice or criticism.”
I agree, of course, that an extensive project of editing, re-editing, and expanding on some body of material would take time. But the question is, how much time would it take? Miracle stories and other fantastic claims do not take decades to form, even if they are false. They can spring up overnight. Don’t believe me? Visit snopes.com and see for yourself.
Of course, literary theories necessarily require a bit of time if they postulate (for example) the Gospel of Q was edited three times and then used as a source for Matthew and Luke. How much time? It’s not entirely clear, but it would seem implausible to postulate so much change within ten years, for example. Is such time available for the development of the narratives? I do not know. I may decide to pursue that issue in the future. The McGrews go on:
“It is therefore no accident that the dominant position in New Testament studies since the pioneering Formgeschichtliche work of Martin Dibelius and Rudolf Bultmann has been that the gospels are very late productions, preferably well into the second century but in all events after A.D. 70, since any earlier dating would require us to attribute to Jesus prophetic abilities with respect to the destruction of Jerusalem that would run afoul of the philosophical naturalism driving the project.
“The role of such naturalism as a motivating factor in the work of the form critics is often
explicit, but as an argument against a more traditional position it suffers from the obvious
drawback of circularity.”
I agree that philosophical naturalism shouldn’t be merely assumed in this debate, because that would indeed be circular.
I’d like to return to comment that the McGrews made, that the gospels dating well before 70 AD would imply Jesus had prophetic abilities. I think I know what the McGrews are talking about: Mark 13. Mark 13 is typically the chapter used to date the gospels to 70 AD. But what exactly does it say? Read it. The “prophecies” in question appear to be (1) that the temple will be destroyed and (2) that Christians will be persecuted in Jesus’ name. Neither one of these strikes me as miraculous, even if it was written down before the fact (and I’m not saying it is, by the way). Interestingly, there’s a Christian apologist who agrees with me:
“First, destruction of the temple (or Jerusalem) would not be too wild a guess, in light of how turbulent relations with the Romans were.
“Second, several contemporaries of Jesus made similar predictions; they were a dime a dozen, and seemingly about as common as modern Americans suggesting blowing up the White House. The most familiar of these predictors, mentioned by Josephus, was Jesus the son of Ananias, a bit of a madman who made predictions of the Temple’s destruction between 63-70 AD [Redating the New Testament, page 15].”
On page 7 We read that, “there are good reasons for dismissing the sweeping negative
conclusions of form criticism regarding the authenticity and reliability of the narratives.” One reason being that “There are no independent textual traditions preserving the allegedly earliest forms.” It’s quite ironic that just a few pages ago the McGrews were attempting to show us how worthless arguments from silence are, and yet now, when it is convenient for them, they embrace a sort of argument from silence: the fact that early textual traditions such as the Q document aren’t attested to anywhere else means that it didn’t exist. We must, as always, consider how strong the absence of the “earlist forms” of textual traditions weighs against their theorized existence. My answer is: not very strongly. It’s only too easy to imagine why such documents became lost over time.
The McGrews go on to detail how they believe that Archaeology has vindicated the gospels and the book of Acts. First, their defense of the gospels: they argue that the pool of Bethesda had five porches (this has been discovered through archaeology) just as the gospel of John said, and then go on to detail similar archaeological discoveries that provide support for the gospels and Acts.
I have no particular bone to pick with the examples they give. I managed to find a book called Jesus and Archaeology
“despite its clear theological tone and agenda and the presence of obvious anachronisms, the Gospel of John should not be dismissed as ahistorical.”*** (emphasis mine)
Reading the McGrews one might get the idea that the gospels have been completely vindicated and shown to be careful and totally accurate histories. But I think the above quote shows the reality of the situation, which is that the gospels contain some historical errors as well as some remarkably correct historical reports.
The McGrews’ entire point here is that the level of historical accuracy present in John and Acts is too great to be the result of embellishment and whatnot over several decades. That could be true, but then who’s to say that this means that John and Acts, as we know them today, must be very early creations? Perhaps both of these books used sources which had been written in the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s or 60’s, and that is why these books have some level of historical accuracy. Indeed, from my reading it is accepted by many in New Testament studies that the gospel of John, as we know it today, has been edited and altered from an earlier edition. See, for example, The Fourth Gospel And Its Predecessor
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Sounds like the conclusion of the gospel, doesn’t it? But it isn’t! Strangely, the gospel of John has entire chapter tacked on to this passage. The conclusion is obvious: the gospel of John originally ended with this passage, but someone came along later and tacked on the extra chapter. And that’s not the only evidence of tampering, as any decent book on the gospel of John will tell you, but that’s another story and is too much to go into in this blog post.
Footnote
*** See Jodi Magness, Review of “Jesus and Archaeology,” The Journal of the American Oriental Society. 127.1 (January-March 2007) p. 87.
The McGrews tell us that:
“The extreme late dating of John’s gospel advocated by Loisy had already been undermined by discoveries in another field. The papyrus fragment p52, which is independently dated by paleographers to the first half of the second century, contains a few sentences of John’s gospel.”
The source cited for this claim was Bruce Metzger in a publication from 1978 (!). Metzger was a great scholar, no doubt, but I don’t think that’s legitimate to toss out such an old reference with checking it against newer material. So, I took it upon myself to check the current scholarly thinking about the dating of John. What do they think?
On page 194 of Expectations of the End (2009) Albert Hogeterp tells us that the gospel of John is usually dated about 90 AD, but cautions us in a footnote that papyrus 52 could date as early as the second century or as late as the early third century (!!) based on a recent analysis.
On Page 165 of Jesus in the Gospels and Acts (2009) similar reservations are expressed. It is stated that scholars have questioned the early dating of the papyrus fragment and seems to imply that since the gospel of John underwent at least one major revision, we can’t really know which version of John’s Gospel this papyrus was, since we have only a tiny fragment.
On Page 108 of John: The Son of Zebedee (2000) we find yet another iteration of current scholarly opinion: that papyrus 52 may date as late as 200 AD.
On the Reliability of Acts
The McGrews take a few stabs at establishing the reliability of the book of Acts. Here are the historical accuracies they have listed:
“The discovery in Caesarea Maritima in 1961 of an inscription bearing Pilate’s name and title, the discovery of a boundary stone of the emperor Claudius bearing the name of Sergius Paulus (cf. Acts 13:7)…”
“Small details [of Acts] were questioned by members of the Tübingen school, such as the use of kyrios as a designation for the emperor in Acts 25:26, have turned out instead to provide evidence for the accuracy of Acts, since numerous papyri subsequently discovered show that this term had been used in Egypt and the East for the reigning emperor since Ptolemaic times, though it became widespread under Nero and later.”
It’s not been easy for me to tell exactly what they mean with these examples. The first quote: an inscription was discovered which bore Pilate’s name and title. To my knowledge the existence of Pontius Pilate has never been in doubt, nor has his title of “prefect” been in doubt or used as some sort of basis to attack the gospels. In fact, Pilate and his title as prefect are mentioned in Tacitus’ Annals. So how can this be seen as anything but a trivial detail which that the New Testament documents get right? This isn’t overwhelming confirmation by any stretch of charitable imagination. The same can be said for the boundary stone of Claudius and the use of kyrios as a designation for the emperor: these may provide corroboration for Acts, but the corroboration seems to me very, very weak.
With that in mind, are there any reasons not to trust the book of Acts? I think so. In Galatians chapter 1:15-17 Paul gives us his own account of what happened after his vision of Jesus:
“But when it pleased God…to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.”
On the other hand, the Book of Acts chapter 9:5-18 tells us us that after Paul’s vision he met with Ananias (i.e., consorted with flesh and blood) after being brought directly into Damascus (not going to Arabia before returning to Damascus). Acts 9:9 tells us that Paul was without sight three days; and yet Ananias is with Paul when he recieves his sight back. That’s important because Paul has just told us that he did “not immediately confer with flesh and blood” after his conversion but according to Acts he did so within three days. There’s also the issue of whether or not Paul visited with all of the disciples after his conversion. Acts tells us one thing, Paul himself tells us another in Galatians.
At the present time I don’t know of any other reasons for distrusting Acts, but as I’ve detailed below I am planning on reading a book about Acts, so at some point in the future I’ll blog on this issue further.
On the Date of Acts
Should the Book of Acts be dated as early (as in mid-first century) or late (as in early second century)? I am undecided. I have managed to find an online copy of a book cited by the McGrews called Redating the New Testament which argues that the bulk of the New Testament was written before the end of the first century. When I have the time I am going to read it. I’ve also found a critique of the work on the website Rejection of Pascal’s Wager. I’d also like to recommend Richard Pervo’s work The Mystery of Acts: Unraveling Its Story
On Q
On page 9 the McGrews once again try to kick sand over New Testament theories they don’t like, in this case they go after the Q document. They gleefully report that Q is “entirely hypothetical” and that there is “not a whisper of it in any writing of the early church fathers.”
It is true that we don’t have a hard copy of Q. Nonetheless, Q, or something like Q, is a practically inescapable deduction from the facts we have. How else would we explain so much common material between Matthew and Luke which aren’t found in Mark? The McGrews reasons for doubting Q, that a hard copy of it doesn’t exist and that no church fathers mention it, are very weak. First: They are contradicting themselves by making an “Argument from Silence” against the Q document (if you recall, they were extremely dismissive towards arguments from silence… That is, when such arguments were used to cast doubt upon the gospels). Second, we already know that a lot of early church documents weren’t handed down to us in the present day. In 1 Corinthians 5:9 Paul tells us that he had previously written a letter to the Corinthians… A letter which we don’t have, which was lost over time. Nor do we have the Logia of Jesus that Papias refers to, but that doesn’t mean there was no such thing. Third, and this is the most damning point of all: The word “Q” is a recent invention to designate the postulated source between Matthew and Luke. If the document originally had a name, it most certainly wasn’t Q. And that’s important, because some scholars believe that the Logia of Jesus is the Q document, which means that there is no argument from silence to be made after all. In the book Sources of the Jesus Tradition
On the Gospel of Matthew
According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE), Papias mentions the Logia of Matthew as being first written in Hebrew, which the McGrews interpret as being the Gospel of Matthew, and at that being the gospel which we have in the New Testament today. This is extremely dubious. As is laid out in the ISBE on pages 280-282, “Logia” probably does not refer to a Gospel, not least because the evidence clearly shows that the Gospel of Matthew we have is not a translated document. Secondly, the Gospel of Matthew that we have today may very well not have been written by Matthew. In fact, if the real Matthew wrote a gospel that wouldn’t preclude in any way the possibility that the gospel was lost and Matthew’s name was attached to another gospel that he didn’t write which became what we now have in our bibles as “The Gospel of Matthew”). As documented by Helmut Koester, more than one early church father attributed the gospel of Thomas to Thomas the follower of Jesus. Would the McGrews accept this evidence as strong indications that the Gospel of Thomas really was written by Thomas? I doubt it, and neither would I. Bottom line: The church traditions concerning the gospels aren’t reliable, not least because they are wildly contradictory (which the McGrews give examples of). And that they contradict one another doesn’t prove they are totally independent traditions. If, in the early Christian community, there arose a rumor that Matthew wrote one of the gospels circulating, then that rumor might get passed around through many “chinese whisper” generations and evolve into several distinct (yet similar) traditions about the gospel. And if the church fathers were relying purely on their on memory of the traditions in question when they were writing about them, then they become even more unreliable. All of us have seen someone botch the details of a story they are recalling.
Were the Gospels from Eyewitnesses? And if they were then doesn’t that mean they’re reliable?
No and No. The McGrews quote Richard Bauckham, who believes that the gospels show indications that they were composed on the basis of eyewitness testimony. As John J. Pilch pointed out in his review of Bauckham*: “[A]nyone even superficially familiar with Mediterranean society understandsthat people often report what others want to hear (e.g., eyewitnesses testifying to weaponsof mass destmction in Iraq). In the Bible, consider 1 Kings 22 or Jeremiah 27-28.”
And things get even worse. For one of the things Bauckham proposes is that the Twelve Apostles are named in order to identify them as eyewitnesses and also that the twelve were responsible for assuring the accuracy of the gospel narratives. But if that were true, how is it (As Stephen J. Patterson noted**) that we ended up with four wildly divergent accounts? If the Twelve took it upon themselves to “peer review” the manuscripts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, then whence so many discrepancies? I have already pointed to plenty of bullshit in the gospels. As Richard Carrier pointed out in his essay on the Resurrection, why is it that no one else in history noticed the tearing of the temple veil mentioned in Mark’s passion narrative, not even the priests whose sole duty was attendance of the veil? Also see my previous post on the subject of gospel reliability here. Fact is, either the gospels are not based on eyewitness testimony or the eyewitnesses are pathological liars. Neither hypothesis is encouraging for someone arguing the resurrection.
Endnotes
* John J. Pilch, Review of “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly; Jan. 2008, Vol. 70 Issue 1, p137-139.
** Stephen J. Patterson, Review of “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses,” Review of Biblical Literature; 2010, Vol. 12, p365-369.
