On a recent blog post, conversation turned toward the reliability of the New Testament, and more specifically, how much evidence we have for whether or not Jesus ever existed. Instead of continuing the discussion there (since it had already broken the 500th comment mark and this would have taken the conversation in a different direction), I thought it might be a good idea to do it here. Makes it easier for other people to find.
So without further ado, here are the three main comments that kicked it off. Feel free to add additional comments below.
UnkleE:
Hi kcchief1, it’s impossible ion a blog comment to do justice you your question, so I’ll give you a few quotes and some references.
EP Sanders, possibly the most respected NT scholar of the last few decades:
“Historical reconstruction is never absolutely certain, and in the case of Jesus it is sometimes highly uncertain. Despite this, we have a good idea of the main lines of his ministry and his message. We know who he was, what he did, what he taught, and why he died. ….. the dominant view [among scholars] today seems to be that we can know pretty well what Jesus was out to accomplish, that we can know a lot about what he said, and that those two things make sense within the world of first-century Judaism.”
(from The Historical Figure of Jesus, p281)“I shall first offer a list of statements about Jesus that meet two standards: they are almost beyond dispute; and they belong to the framework of his life, and especially of his public career. (A list of everything that we know about Jesus would be appreciably longer.)
Jesus was born c 4 BCE near the time of the death of Herod the Great;
he spent his childhood and early adult years in Nazareth, a Galilean village;
he was baptised by John the Baptist;
he called disciples;
he taught in the towns, villages and countryside of Galilee (apparently not the cities);
he preached ‘the kingdom of God’;
about the year 30 he went to Jerusalem for Passover;
he created a disturbance in the Temple area;
he had a final meal with the disciples;
he was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities, specifically the high priest;
he was executed on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate.”
(from The Historical Figure of Jesus, p10-11)“I think we can be fairly certain that initially Jesus’ fame came as a result of healing, especially exorcism.”
(from The Historical Figure of Jesus, p154)Maurice Casey:
“[Mark’s] sources, though abbreviated, were literally accurate accounts of incidents and sayings from the life and teaching of Jesus. …. The completed Gospels of Matthew and Luke are also important sources for the life and teachings of Jesus ….Some of his [Matthew’s] special material … shows every sign of being authentic material literally and accurately translated from Aramaic sources.”
(from Jesus of Nazareth, p 97-99)Classical historian, Michael Grant:
“The consistency, therefore, of the tradition in their [the Gospels’] pages suggests that the picture they present is largely authentic.”
(From Jesus: an historian’s review of the gospels, p 202)Craig Evans:
“the persistent trend in recent years is to see the Gospels as essentially reliable, especially when properly understood, and to view the historical Jesus in terms much closer to Christianity’s traditional understanding, i.e., as the proclaimer of God’s rule, as understanding himself as the Lord’s anointed, and, indeed, as God’s own son, destined to rule Israel.”
(from http://craigaevans.com/Third_Quest.rev.pdf)John A.T. Robinson:
“The wealth of manuscripts, and above all the narrow interval of time between the writing and the earliest extant copies, make it by far the best attested text of any ancient writing in the world.”
(From Can we Trust the New Testament?, p36)You can find more quotes on Jesus in history, <a href="http://www.is-there-a-god.info/belief/nthistory.shtml"Are the gospels historical.
Note that both Evans & Sanders claim to be reporting the view of the majority of scholars.
I don’t think archaeology can help much because it can throw light on places, but not much on the text. But the much-maligned John’s gospel has been found by archaeology to report accurately several locations that were destroyed long before it was written – see Archaeology and John’s gospel.
So that’s as much as I should write here. Please check out the references for more.
kcchief1:
unkleE, you can always find Scholars to support your claims. That doesn’t mean they are right. Here are just a few Scholars who don’t agree with your Scholars. If your evidence was conclusive, why this disagreement amongst Scholars. Also when you tour Jerusalem the most common statement your Tour guide will make before he talks about a Holy Site or Holy person is the famous, ” Tradition tells us” NOT “History tells us” I was recently in the ancient city of Ephesus and someone from my group asked the local guide why he kept using the phrase,”Tradition tells us Paul preached here …isn’t there archaeological evidence for this?” The guide said ,”It’s your story not ours” I have no proof there wasn’t a Jesus any more than you have proof there was. I agree that much of the NT is historical in as much as certain cities, villages, and government official’s names are true. But you can’t boldly proclaim there is historical evidence for the main character, Jesus.
Oh not that it really matters because it proves nothing either but here are scholars who question the historicity of Jesus and/or the NT.
When the Church mythologists established their system, they collected all the writings they could find and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New Testaments are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them, or whether they added, altered, abridged or dressed them up.
-Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
The world has been for a long time engaged in writing lives of Jesus… The library of such books has grown since then. But when we come to examine them, one startling fact confronts us: all of these books relate to a personage concerning whom there does not exist a single scrap of contemporary information — not one! By accepted tradition he was born in the reign of Augustus, the great literary age of the nation of which he was a subject. In the Augustan age historians flourished; poets, orators, critics and travelers abounded. Yet not one mentions the name of Jesus Christ, much less any incident in his life.
-Moncure D. Conway [1832 – 1907] (Modern Thought)
It is only in comparatively modern times that the possibility was considered that Jesus does not belong to history at all.
-J.M. Robertson (Pagan Christs)
Many people– then and now– have assumed that these letters [of Paul] are genuine, and five of them were in fact incorporated into the New Testament as “letters of Paul.” Even today, scholars dispute which are authentic and which are not. Most scholars, however, agree that Paul actually wrote only eight of the thirteen “Pauline” letters now included in the New Testament. collection: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Virtually all scholars agree that Paul himself did not write 1 or 2 Timothy or Titus– letters written in a style different from Paul’s and reflecting situations and viewpoints in a style different from those in Paul’s own letters. About the authorship of Ephesias, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, debate continues; but the majority of scholars include these, too, among the “deutero-Pauline”– literally, secondarily Pauline– letters.”
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, (Adam, Eve, and the Serpent)
We know virtually nothing about the persons who wrote the gospels we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, (The Gnostic Gospels)
Some hoped to penetrate the various accounts and to discover the “historical Jesus”. . . and that sorting out “authentic” material in the gospels was virtually impossible in the absence of independent evidence.”
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University
The gospels are so anonymous that their titles, all second-century guesses, are all four wrong.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
Far from being an intimate of an intimate of Jesus, Mark wrote at the forth remove from Jesus.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
Mark himself clearly did not know any eyewitnesses of Jesus.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
All four gospels are anonymous texts. The familiar attributions of the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from the mid-second century and later and we have no good historical reason to accept these attributions.
-Steve Mason, professor of classics, history and religious studies at York University in Toronto (Bible Review, Feb. 2000, p. 36)
The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel.
-Bishop John Shelby Spong
But even if it could be proved that John’s Gospel had been the first of the four to be written down, there would still be considerable confusion as to who “John” was. For the various styles of the New Testament texts ascribed to John- The Gospel, the letters, and the Book of Revelations– are each so different in their style that it is extremely unlikely that they had been written by one person.
-John Romer, archeologist & Bible scholar (Testament)
It was not until the third century that Jesus’ cross of execution became a common symbol of the Christian faith.
-John Romer, archeologist & Bible scholar (Testament)
What one believes and what one can demonstrate historically are usually two different things.
-Robert J. Miller, Bible scholar, (Bible Review, December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p. 9)
When it comes to the historical question about the Gospels, I adopt a mediating position– that is, these are religious records, close to the sources, but they are not in accordance with modern historiographic requirements or professional standards.
-David Noel Freedman, Bible scholar and general editor of the Anchor Bible series (Bible Review, December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p.34)
Paul did not write the letters to Timothy to Titus or several others published under his name; and it is unlikely that the apostles Matthew, James, Jude, Peter and John had anything to do with the canonical books ascribed to them.
-Michael D. Coogan, Professor of religious studies at Stonehill College (Bible Review, June 1994)
A generation after Jesus’ death, when the Gospels were written, the Romans had destroyed the Jerusalem Temple (in 70 C.E.); the most influential centers of Christianity were cities of the Mediterranean world such as Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Damascus, Ephesus and Rome. Although large number of Jews were also followers of Jesus, non-Jews came to predominate in the early Church. They controlled how the Gospels were written after 70 C.E.
-Bruce Chilton, Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College (Bible Review, Dec. 1994, p. 37)
James Dunn says that the Sermon on the Mount, mentioned only by Matthew, “is in fact not historical.”
How historical can the Gospels be? Are Murphy-O-Conner’s speculations concerning Jesus’ baptism by John simply wrong-headed? How can we really know if the baptism, or any other event written about in the Gospels, is historical?
-Daniel P. Sullivan (Bible Review, June 1996, Vol. XII, Number 3, p. 5)
David Friedrich Strauss (The Life of Jesus, 1836), had argued that the Gospels could not be read as straightforward accounts of what Jesus actually did and said; rather, the evangelists and later redactors and commentators, influenced by their religious beliefs, had made use of myths and legends that rendered the gospel narratives, and traditional accounts of Jesus’ life, unreliable as sources of historical information.
-Bible Review, October 1996, Vol. XII, Number 5, p. 39
The Gospel authors were Jews writing within the midrashic tradition and intended their stories to be read as interpretive narratives, not historical accounts.
-Bishop Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels
Other scholars have concluded that the Bible is the product of a purely human endeavor, that the identity of the authors is forever lost and that their work has been largely obliterated by centuries of translation and editing.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “Who Wrote the Bible,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Yet today, there are few Biblical scholars– from liberal skeptics to conservative evangelicals- who believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually wrote the Gospels. Nowhere do the writers of the texts identify themselves by name or claim unambiguously to have known or traveled with Jesus.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The Four Gospels,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Once written, many experts believe, the Gospels were redacted, or edited, repeatedly as they were copied and circulated among church elders during the last first and early second centuries.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The Four Gospels,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The tradition attributing the fourth Gospel to the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee, is first noted by Irenaeus in A.D. 180. It is a tradition based largely on what some view as the writer’s reference to himself as “the beloved disciple” and “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Current objection to John’s authorship are based largely on modern textural analyses that strongly suggest the fourth Gospel was the work of several hands, probably followers of an elderly teacher in Asia Minor named John who claimed as a young man to have been a disciple of Jesus.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The Four Gospels,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Some scholars say so many revisions occurred in the 100 years following Jesus’ death that no one can be absolutely sure of the accuracy or authenticity of the Gospels, especially of the words the authors attributed to Jesus himself.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Three letters that Paul allegedly wrote to his friends and former co-workers Timothy and Titus are now widely disputed as having come from Paul’s hand.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The Epistle of James is a practical book, light on theology and full of advice on ethical behavior. Even so, its place in the Bible has been challenged repeatedly over the years. It is generally believed to have been written near the end of the first century to Jewish Christians. . . but scholars are unable conclusively to identify the writer.
Five men named James appear in the New Testament: the brother of Jesus, the son of Zebedee, the son of Alphaeus, “James the younger” and the father of the Apostle Jude.
Little is known of the last three, and since the son of Zebedee was martyred in A.D. 44, tradition has leaned toward the brother of Jesus. However, the writer never claims to be Jesus’ brother. And scholars find the language too erudite for a simple Palestinian. This letter is also disputed on theological grounds. Martin Luther called it “an epistle of straw” that did not belong in the Bible because it seemed to contradict Paul’s teachings that salvation comes by faith as a “gift of God”– not by good works.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The origins of the three letters of John are also far from certain.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Christian tradition has held that the Apostle Peter wrote the first [letter], probably in Rome shortly before his martyrdom about A.D. 65. However, some modern scholars cite the epistle’s cultivated language and its references to persecutions that did not occur until the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) as evidence that it was actually written by Peter’s disciples sometime later.
Second Peter has suffered even harsher scrutiny. Many scholars consider it the latest of all New Testament books, written around A.D. 125. The letter was never mentioned in second-century writings and was excluded from some church canons into the fifth century. “This letter cannot have been written by Peter,” wrote Werner Kummel, a Heidelberg University scholar, in his highly regarded Introduction to the New Testament.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The letter of Jude also is considered too late to have been written by the attested author– “the brother of James” and, thus, of Jesus. The letter, believed written early in the second century.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
According to the declaration of the Second Vatican Council, a faithful account of the actions and words of Jesus is to be found in the Gospels; but it is impossible to reconcile this with the existence in the text of contradictions, improbabilities, things which are materially impossible or statements which run contrary to firmly established reality.
-Maurice Bucaille (The Bible, the Quran, and Science)
The bottom line is we really don’t know for sure who wrote the Gospels.
-Jerome Neyrey, of the Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, Mass. in “The Four Gospels,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Most scholars have come to acknowledge, was done not by the Apostles but by their anonymous followers (or their followers’ followers). Each presented a somewhat different picture of Jesus’ life. The earliest appeared to have been written some 40 years after his Crucifixion.
-David Van Biema, “The Gospel Truth?” (Time, April 8, 1996)
So unreliable were the Gospel accounts that “we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus.”
-Rudolf Bultmann, University of Marburg, the foremost Protestant scholar in the field in 1926
The Synoptic Gospels employ techniques that we today associate with fiction.
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
Josephus says that he himself witnessed a certain Eleazar casting out demons by a method of exorcism that had been given to Solomon by God himself– while Vespasian watched! In the same work, Josephus tells the story of a rainmaker, Onias (14.2.1).
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
For Mark’s gospel to work, for instance, you must believe that Isaiah 40:3 (quoted, in a slightly distorted form, in Mark 1:2-3) correctly predicted that a stranger named John would come out of the desert to prepare the way for Jesus. It will then come as something of a surprise to learn in the first chapter of Luke that John is a near relative, well known to Jesus’ family.
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
The narrative conventions and world outlook of the gospel prohibit our using it as a historical record of that year.
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 54)
Jesus is a mythical figure in the tradition of pagan mythology and almost nothing in all of ancient literature would lead one to believe otherwise. Anyone wanting to believe Jesus lived and walked as a real live human being must do so despite the evidence, not because of it.
-C. Dennis McKinsey, Bible critic (The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy)
The gospels are very peculiar types of literature. They’re not biographies.
-Paula Fredriksen, Professor and historian of early Christianity, Boston University (in the PBS documentary, From Jesus to Christ, aired in 1998)
The gospels are not eyewitness accounts
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
We are led to conclude that, in Paul’s past, there was no historical Jesus. Rather, the activities of the Son about which God’s gospel in scripture told, as interpreted by Paul, had taken place in the spiritual realm and were accessible only through revelation.
-Earl Doherty, “The Jesus Puzzle,” p.83
Before the Gospels were adopted as history, no record exists that he was ever in the city of Jerusalem at all– or anywhere else on earth.
-Earl Doherty, “The Jesus Puzzle,” p.141
Even if there was a historical Jesus lying back of the gospel Christ, he can never be recovered. If there ever was a historical Jesus, there isn’t one any more. All attempts to recover him turn out to be just modern remythologizings of Jesus. Every “historical Jesus” is a Christ of faith, of somebody’s faith. So the “historical Jesus” of modern scholarship is no less a fiction.
-Robert M. Price, “Jesus: Fact or Fiction, A Dialogue With Dr. Robert Price and Rev. John Rankin,” Opening Statement
It is important to recognize the obvious: The gospel story of Jesus is itself apparently mythic from first to last.”
-Robert M. Price, professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute (Deconstructing Jesus, p. 260)
kcchief1:
unkleE, I could have shortened my last post by 90% by simply providing one Scholar whose reputation speaks for himself. Geza Vermes
Géza Vermes or Vermès (Hungarian: [ˈɡeːzɒ ˈvɛrmɛʃ], 22 June 1924 – 8 May 2013) was a British scholar of Jewish Hungarian origin—one who also served as a Catholic priest in his youth—and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. He was a noted authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient works in Aramaic such as the Targums, and on the life and religion of Jesus. He was one of the most important voices in contemporary Jesus research,[1] and he has been described as the greatest Jesus scholar of his time.[2] Vermes’ written work on Jesus focuses principally on Jesus the Jew, as seen in the broader context of the narrative scope of Jewish history and theology, while questioning the basis of some Christian teachings on Jesus.[3]
Geza Vermes on the Resurrection
Vermes contends that neither the empty tomb or resurrection appearances satisfy the “minimum requirements of a legal or scientific inquiry. The only alternative historians are left with in their effort to make some sense of the Resurrection is to fall back on speculation…”(141) This speculation requires the dismissal of “two extreme” theories – (1) the “blind faith of the fundamentalist” who accept the bodily resurrection and (2) the “unbelievers” who “treat the whole Resurrection story as the figment of early Christian imagination.” (141) So what are the alternatives between this spectrum?
1. The Body was Removed by Someone Unconnected with Jesus
The emptiness of the tomb was genuine, but there are a number of reasons aside from Mark 16:6. The swift nature of the burial in a tomb “obviously prepared for someone else” is explained that someone – possibly the gardener (Jn 20:15) – “took the first opportunity to move the body of Jesus to another available tomb.” (142) It was this innocent transfer of the body that later developed into the “legend of the Resurrection.” (143) Vermes notes that this is itself problematic – those who organised the burial were well known and could have explained this.2. The Body of Jesus was Stolen by His Disciples
Those familiar with the narrative in Matthew will recognise this hypothesis as a current polemic against the empty tomb tradition (Matt 28:15). Vermes points out that this theory “presupposes that a fraudulent prophecy concerning Jesus’ rising from the dead was widely known among Palestinian Jews.” (143) Evidently, this is a “later Jewish gossip” circulating the time the evangelist was writing and its value for the Resurrection is “next to nil”.3. The Empty Tomb was not the Tomb of Jesus
Drawing on the fact that the witness of women was not very convincing, the disciples who investigated the report of the empty tomb (Luke 24:11) may have suspected the women had “gone to the wrong tomb.” The disciples may have simply been mistaken, and the resurrection appearances that soon followed “rendered such an inquiry [as to the location of the tomb] superfluous.” (144)4. Buried Alive, Jesus Later Left the Tomb
This is self-explanatory, and is elaborately forwarded by Barbara Thiering. Josephus’ Life 420 evidences crucifixion victims surviving. The theory is that Jesus was on the cross for such a short time that he was not dead when Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body. John’s mention of the spear in the side was an apologetic to dispel these sort of doubts. (John 19:34) However, I would argue that John’s mention, if invention, would have more to do with suffering servant styled prophecy fulfilled. Vermes sees this as implausible – a “semiconscious Jesus crept out of the tomb in the darkness of night…” (145)5. The Migrant Jesus
A belief evident in contemporary Ahmadiyya Islam which believes Jesus was revived and eventually died in Kashmir, India. Others such as Thiering believe that Jesus wandered off to Rome where he died. Vermes concludes “In the absence of real ancient evidence, these modern musings need not retain us.”(146) By real evidence, he is of course referring to Thiering’s discovery by using “Pesher” to find whatever she wants in whatever document. For a brief review of pesher see my earlier post.6. Do the appearances suggest spiritual, not bodily, resurrection?
Visions of the risen Jesus are abundant in the Christian sources (with a notable exception being the shorter ending of Mark.) These visions are separated into 4 categories:
1. “In Matthew no concrete details are given”
2. John/Luke – unknown man such as the gardener and travel are later recognised as Jesus
3. Luke/John – “a spirit mysteriously enters the apostles’ residence despite the locked doors”
4. “The ghost later becomes a stranger with flesh and bones, who says he is Jesus and invited the apostles to touch him, and eat with him.” (146)
As the evangelists do not mention appearances to people outside the circle of his close followers Vermes takes these to imply that the Resurrection was not meant to be an extension of public ministry. In essence, the “Resurrection becomes a purely spiritual concept without requiring any accompanying physical reality.” (147) The idea of spiritual resurrection accounts for the visions, but the Jewish bond of body and spirit spurred the empty tomb and physicality of the body in John and Luke. In appealing to the mystic tradition, Vermes contends that this view is no different from crosscultural experiences. [I didn’t explain this option best although in my defence neither does Vermes.]Conclusions
Vermes really does come to something quite unsatisfying – “All in all, none of the six suggested theories stands up to stringent scrutiny.”Geza Vermes on the Nativity
‘The nature of the birth stories and the many fabulous features incorporated in them, angels, dreams, virginal conception, miraculous star,’ bring Dr Vermes to the view that the Infancy Gospels are ‘not the stuff out of which history is made’.Thank you for your time
Finding Truth 
Yes, i think that’s well said, nan.
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Hi William,
No it is not my point the Bible is not serious.
When we believe in both God and history records, we must conclude that God let mankind run its cause. We might ask for a magic help on the way but it doesn’t seem like mankind had one. Ancient man prior to the Greek science revolution did not concern itself with science. Genesis 1 is no more silly than other ancient creation records. A spiritual mindset, especially one ignorant of science but well acquinted with ANE symbolism, will appriciate it.
Bible fundamentalists and Bible critics / atheist debators both claim 1-0 wins. I believe the reasonable believer should be more than happy with 1-1 scores showing the exaggerations of both opponents.That ancient history in modern journalistic sense is very badly documented is in that context therefore to our advantage. We can’t pick up dissolved scrolls like we can pick up ancient bones and dna. My example of Paul is most pragmatic. I learned that Bart Erhman argues this point also. Different Greek doesn’t settle the point that the socalled canonical pseudographical letters were not written in the authority, instruction and approval of the man in question.
About Tyre – and as I said – this issue never concerned me much, IF it is true that Nebu’ was the hand that made Tyre shrink considerably in power, that sounds fully sufficient. When a man is likened to a cherubim in Eden and another man to a dragon in the Nile (Ezekiel 28-29), then sorry guys, but it is not sound to demand a literal fullfilment of prophecies.
Genealogy. Well what do you expect of a modern day genealogy? A literal and historical accurate one. Nothing else makes sense – today. But it was not so in ancient days. There were cultural, authoritative religious motivations for infusing someone into a genealogy and nobody has ever been more infused into a genealogy than Jesus.
I’m sorry if all this comes across to you as excuses. I guess when we argue that it would be pointless and cruel to the first century readers to have the book of Revelation speaking of things they could not know and understand, we also support those saying the book was only and fully the product of 1st century men.
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Joe, no, no – it’s fine. And I sort of agree. I also think the bible was written to people of that time with the general understanding of that time. But most christians (at least the ones I know and the one I used to be) maintain that the bible is for all people, for all time.
If that is the position, then it is problematic. it may be that first century christians (and those religious peoples even earlier) commonly gave inaccurate and conflicting genealogies as evidence, why it would have served as reliable evidence for anything e is beyond me, but perhaps they did.
Regardless, i imagine that even despite their practice of genealogical malpractice that they still would have understood and would not have been confused by an accurate genealogy. Why, if that’s what we had, then no one would could argue that it was a problem. No one. We would not be discussing it now. It’s just harder to point to accuracy and say, “look at that problem.”
Further, most christians I know also maintain that god is all knowing. Wouldnt an all knowing perfect god have known that the man of today would see an inaccurate and conflicting genealogy, which was presented as some sort of evidence for some bold claim, as anything other than contradictory? it could have been so easily fixed. And i am just supposed to believe that it should be okay?
and this line of reasoning really applies for the other specific issues as well. The bible is flawed – I see that as a problem when it’s reported to be from something perfect. And everything seems like it can simply be dismissed as allegory or figurative language. That is convenient. perhaps the man jesus was also simply a parable, and not meant to be taken literally… I guess we can do this all day with everything since the the early jews would’ve been fine with it.
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Well put, Nan.
@Joe, ” A spiritual mindset, especially one ignorant of science but well acquinted with ANE symbolism, will appriciate it.”
Sorry Joe, this just seams to fit with your comment. What Author Alvin Boyd Kuhn says about Christianity, ” As ignorance was its mother and the source-spring of its world power, it is bound to cherish ignorance as its patron saint and monitor forever, for the breadth of knowledge would wither it away.”
Forgive me Ark & John Z for posting this again but the first time here on this blog.
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@Joe, “Ancient man prior to the Greek science revolution did not concern itself with science. Genesis 1 is no more silly than other ancient creation records”
You don’t know your history Joe. Before the time Genesis 1 was ever put to print the ancient egyptians were very much into science. Without it there would have been no pyramids. Medical science owes much to the egyptians who were some of the first to practice surgery.
Your ability to dismiss non-believers and your own bible is only surpassed by your ability to play loose with historical facts.
You can’t really say the bible isn’t that relevant to your faith because you probably would never had heard of a man named Jesus without it.
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William,
Well according to the Bible the birth of Jesus was supernatural. Jesus was never literally and historically a part of these genealogies. I was born in a certain year and a certain place as the result of some sexual activities of two people, my parents. They in return both had parents, my grandparents. I will very likely have children and grandchildren. A very literal genealogy. But Jesus entered “out of nowhere” by a supernatural act. The literal mother appears to have been Mary but the literal father is missing…. At the same time one of the Messianic premises is that the Christ is the son of David. This unique supernatural irrational situation couldnt have a literal genealogy and we do know they already did creative genealogies. Hebrews 7:3 is an example in perfect accordance with that. Old man Melchizedek is described in thus terms as “without father, without mother, without genealogy” as one with no known genealogy account opposed to the Levites who safeguarded their genealogy records with great zealousness.
You loose me when you criticize those applied genealogies internally. As much skepticism this fails its own battle cry for reason .
kcchief1,
Egyptian science was not all that and was always highly infused with religion:
http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/medicine.htm
Of cause I know about it, but I also know we don’t talk of the Egyptian scientific revolution, but the Greek. All high culture will as we see from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs progress on certain issues, but the most progressed Egyptian mind was far more grounded in belief in the supernatural than the scientific quest. Even the desert dwelling Jews had either by God’s revelation or – your only choice – by empirical observation concluded that certain cleanliness laws were necessary.
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Joe, not to be rude, but you’re either insane or lying if you believe the issue with the genealogy is without reason. I cant even begin to understand how you’re lost by it…
The genealogies were written and presented for a reason. What was that reason? To show that Jesus was through the line of David, Judah, and Abraham. Well, when the bible presents two NT genealogies, that both report to go through Jesus’ adopted earth father Joseph, yet are nearly completely different (3 names are the same – how would this be possible?), it shows a discrepancy. And the fact the neither match the OT genealogies is just gravy and still equals “problem.”
And if the bible was trying to point out that jesus didnt need linage, then why give two different ones and push them off as “proof” when they could have presented him as hebrews presented Melchizedek?
It is not a leap to find this troubling. In fact, the only leaps being made, and the suppositions regrading this being presented are those that try to dismiss or reconcile the problems.
It’s like a police officer storming your house and giving you what he calls a warrant, but when you look at it, it’s a McDonald’s receipt from his lunch. It’s just bogus and means the dude really doesnt have the authority he said he did.
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Hi William,
“Joe, not to be rude, but you’re either insane or lying if you believe the issue with the genealogy is without reason. I cant even begin to understand how you’re lost by it…” hehe, not rude at all lol. This lunatic or liar reminds me of someone C.S. Lewis spoke of in his “trilemma”. Oh oh, could it be a sign…? LOL
Seriously, no I don’t see it as already explained. Long time ago, I noticed that a terrifying number of people, believers and unbelievers, have great difficulty in comprehending that when you read something, you first define the genre, then the context and then the message. Your natural genealogy requirements to the accounts of Jesus is mind boggling. Are you really being serious? Or is that ridiculous Bultmann approach of reading in naturalistic unbelief into religious texts? That makes no sense. It’s pointless.
I left it at saying earlier: “Genealogy. Well what do you expect of a modern day genealogy? A literal and historical accurate one. Nothing else makes sense – today. But it was not so in ancient days. There were cultural, authoritative religious motivations for infusing someone into a genealogy and nobody has ever been more infused into a genealogy than Jesus.”
That is sufficient. Of cause you can take it further. Here is what one of the guys I sometimes have consulted says. Adolph Earnest Knoch is the most unusual I have used, not always orthodox, but mostly have some great points – for believers of cause 😉
Concerning Matthew 2:1;
“This is the royal lineage of the Son of David as well as the title to the land granted to Abraham. In contrast to the genealogy given by Luke, we are given the actual physical descent by the male line to Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of our Lord. The three sections bring before us three distinct phases of rule and the failure of each. First we have the theocracy until David, which ended when the people clamored for a king (1 Sam.8:6-22). Then comes the period of the kingdom, which was a series of failures, until the Babylonian exile. Since then the nations ruled Israel, until the birth of Messiah, when they were under the Roman yoke. It was a dismal descent, and proved conclusively that no male issue of this line would ever be competent to sit upon the throne of Messiah.
David was the greatest of the kings, yet his son Solomon was a living evidence of his terrible sin. And so degenerate did the line of his sons become that at the time of the exile Jechoniah drew down upon himself the curse of Jehovah:
“Thus saith the Lord,
‘Write this man bereft,
A master who shall not prosper in his days:
For no man of his seed shall prosper,
Sitting on the throne of David
And ruling any more in Judah’.” (Jer.22:30)
Neither Joseph, nor any of his progenitors since the exile, were eligible the throne. If Christ were his natural son, He also would be debarred. The Messiah cannot be of the seed of Jechoniah. Hence the absolute necessity of the virgin birth. Being begotten by God, the sins of progenitors did not taint His blood, and the curse of Coniah had no claim on Him. Yet, as the Son of Joseph, He inherited the title to the throne and all the honors of the house of David.”
Concerning Luke 3:23;
“23 Maturity and sonship, as distinguished from nativity and minority, were not attained at birth, but waited until the thirtieth year. The genealogy here given does not deal with birth or begettal, but with sonship. Hence it is not introduced until He arrives at His full manhood, and God Himself claims Him as His Son. The following pedigree is hardly intended to prove Him a descendant of Adam, but rather to show that this line, through which He came as to flesh, was absolutely incapable of producing the Sinless One, apart from His divine paternity.
23 This genealogy gives us the “Seed of the woman” (Gen.3:15) Who shall crush the serpent’s head. Unlike Matthew’s pedigree, it does not trace the physical male ancestry, but the legal line, through Mary back to Adam.
Christ is first proclaimed as the Son of God. Then He is shown to be the legal (not physical) son of Joseph. Joseph, also, is not the offspring of Heli, whose son he is said to be, for in Matthew we read that he was begotten by Jacob. He was, therefore, the son-in-law of Heli, by his marriage with Mary, Heli’s daughter. As Heli had no son of his own his allotment passed to his daughter’s husband (Nu.27:8) and so Joseph is the legal son of Heli and the physical son of Jacob.”
Lots of great stuff here.
It also answers your Hebrews 7:3 question. I add that Hebrews is totally justified to have it its own take on the spiritual truths and is a more complex writing that the synoptics and that it has been difficult for later ages to understand what that verse means.
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http://www.concordant.org/expohtml/ConcordantCommentary/CC00.htm
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Joe,
I’m sort of dumbfounded.
CS Lewis’ “trilemma” was incomplete and therefore invalid – but that’s another topic.
Again, what you say and who you cite to try and justify the problems are conjecture. Why didnt the bible solve it’s own problems by just explaining it the way the two guys you mentioned did if they were correct? Was the bible only written for the early people, or fall all people?
And you may not agree with me, but say that you just don’t get it or that it loses you just boggles the mind and makes me question your integrity. What i have laid out makes perfect sense. Agreeing or disagreeing may be another matter – I allow that. But nonsense? c’mon, that’s just dishonest.
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William,
What is mind boggling and leaves me dumbfounded is that you insist to apply modern western cultural thinking into the Bible. And it is impossible to free you of the charge of dishonesty. As a nonbeliever and skeptic you already accept without any clarification that the Bible was written in certain times and cultural settings vastly different from the 21st century – whereever you live, I guess the USA or some other Western country. So it’s very dishonest of you to throw standard Christian diatribe against me, like “Was the bible only written for the early people, or fall all people?” The answer of cause that it was written for contemporary people and then became the inheritence of the believers.
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Joe,
Wouldn’t you think the contemporary bibles like the NIV or the NLT etc which have been translated over the past 60 years would have translated the ancient scripture for today’s readers to understand ? And yet the inconsistancies and errors persist.
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Joe, I was once a believer and while I live in North America, i have traveled much of the world, including several nations in the middle east. And as I’ve stated before, I can agree that the old book was written for its contemporaries.
Most books are. They’re written to reach a desired audience. The fact that it doesnt resonate with me or many other people of this century may indicate that it was not written with us in mind.
You may not be among them, but I said that most of the chrsitians I knew and know believed the bible was written for all people for all time. You seem to disagree. I do too. There are both obvious and easy ways to reconcile some if these issues (including the genealogy) that would be suitable for everyone – the bible doesn’t do this.
“What is mind boggling and leaves me dumbfounded is that you insist to apply modern western cultural thinking into the Bible.” is it really? seeing as how I live and exist in modern times i would think it obvious. I also live and exist in reality, which is another reason I have hard time talking to you.
Let’s back up here and be honest with each other. I can come off as jerk sometimes. I am sorry. But let’s not pretend that what i’m saying is absurd – whether you agree or not, you should still be able to see my reasoning.
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Joen,
Sorry I didn’t have time to reply earlier. I think William and KC have made some good points about the importance of the Bible. Think of it this way: when you type your comments here, you’re trying as hard as you can to make your points clearly — we all are. We want to communicate with one another as perfectly as possible so we can cut through any misunderstanding.
Of course, we’re all imperfect, so we just do the best we can. But if we were all-knowledgeable and all-powerful, we could definitely communicate in a way that would ensure we would be understood. Now imagine that the message we needed to communicate was the most important message anyone could ever receive — it didn’t just save lives, it saved them eternally. Wouldn’t you make sure you communicated it correctly?
Instead, as William and KC have pointed out (and as you’ve actually agreed with), the Bible seems to be a very human document. It contains mistakes, bad morality, bad history, bad science, prophecies that fall flat, etc. Yet it supposedly contains the most important message one could ever receive, and it supposedly comes from a perfect being. To me, that just doesn’t make sense.
On another note, if God gives faith to people, why doesn’t everyone believe? And why do you spend any time trying to convince people of something they can’t believe anyway, until God gives them the ability to?
Thanks
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William,
Haha, “I am sorry” you say and yet the radical insults continues “I also live and exist in reality, which is another reason I have hard time talking to you”. What apparently discounts me from reality is lack of desire to read +1,900 years old ANE documents as yesterdays newspaper LOL.
I found some quotes here saying the same in other words. If we look past the faith element, i.e. believing it’s from God in some radical terminilogy, disagreeing with this is like I have already described.
“2. The Bible is a Covenantal Book.
Remember that the Bible is a covenantal book from Genesis to Revelation. It is not concerned about the physical and literal so much as it is with the spiritual and covenantal. The creation and prophetic portions of scripture are primarily covenantal, not literal.
4. Audience Relevance.
None of the Bible was written to us. It was written for us, but not to us. For example, when John wrote Revelation, he was writing to seven historical churches that existed at that time. He was not addressing Christians in America in the 21st century. When we read the New Testament epistles we are literally reading somebody else’s mail. How did the original audience view that particular book in the Bible? What did it mean to them? We must read the Bible through an Ancient Near East viewpoint, not a modern 21 century Western culture viewpoint. The Bible must be read through a Hebrew (covenantal) mind, rather than a Greek (scientific) mind.
6. Historical Context.
When was the book written? To whom was it written? Why was it written? Under what circumstances? If someone 2,000 years from now got a hold of a newspaper from our time and saw cartoons with elephants and donkeys, they would not understand the true meaning of those cartoons if they tried to take them literally. They would have to understand that the elephant and donkey were symbols for the political parties. Such is the case when we read the Bible. If we try to take the images given in Revelation literally, we completely miss the point.”
Note “None of the Bible was written to us. It was written for us, but not to us.” corresponds with my “The answer of cause that it was written for contemporary people and then became the inheritence of the believers.”
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http://preterismmatters.webs.com/howtoreadthebible.htm
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Hi Nate,
That I believe faith is from God, doesn’t mean I know where anyone is currently walking on the road map (this is in accordance with Luther and classic Calvinism also) nor do I assume people need faith to understand what I say here. What I do argue here and yes you can say try to convince, is simply radical/fundamentalistic misunderstandings about my inheritance.
I don’t agree with all this bad mouthing of the Word. My spirit senses the anger in here. Only thing I agree to bad mouth is certain wrathful and angered Old Testament passages and then a lot in the Old Testament doesn’t do much for me. But I think the criticism against the Bible construct is loaded with all the assumptions and excuses you recite about what should be. But when people say oh the Bible should be this and that, they are demanding the very thing that they critisize the Bible for; the Bible as a human product. One of the believer’s basics is “God knows better”.
Another thing overlooked is that the believer loves the Word. He or she doesn’t have this tired attitude, that she or she wont do a little effort to learn some basics. Not because it is needed. The Gospel can be written in a few lines or in your hand. But because they love the Word and are curious to to explore the Bible.
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Joe/Joen,
I get what you’re saying when speaking about revelation and books like that, but when the bible speaks about physical people, and their physical blood ties together, I think it is fair to take that at face value and see if it’s right – otherwise there is literally no point in presenting a genealogy. I get that jesus was basically Joseph’s adopted son, but mathew and luke still go to the trouble of laying out a linage through him as if it means something, as if it was proof for something.
And if luke’s account was actually Joseph’s in laws, then why not say that? It would have been too easy to do so… but even then there’s problems with it, since the 3 or so names actually match with Mathew…
I dont buy that presenting fallacious genealogies werent confusing or were somehow the norm for the first century christians and jews – it just doesnt make sense. I know what a geneaolgy is. i know what they’re used for – and it’s the same as it’s always been. people are only forced to say otherwise when trying to defend these passages – that’s it.
You can even see that for yourself in the bible. They always say, “Abraham, isaac, and Jacob”- not “Cleveland, Isaac, Benjamin, Forester and Abraham…” Genealogies lose their validity when tossing random names in the mix, while leaving out important ones. Am I to belive that the latter example would’ve made perfect sense to the early jews? .. or that they’d be confused by an accurate genealogy?
And parts of the bible have to be literal if you’re a believer, or do you think the man jesus was just a story?
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Joen,
I think where we keep missing each other is in this: you seem to take for granted that the Bible was actually inspired by God. The rest of us need some kind of evidence to believe that. Can you provide any?
Also, out of curiosity, what is the Bible for, in your opinion?
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William,
a) How can a person coming to be through virgin birth have a literal human father and a literal genealogy? What’s that? You say you don’t believe in the virgin birth? Well then you don’t believe in the background of the record and shouldn’t pretend you are critical of the its details. Your non-virgin birth believing criticism is irrelevant to how an argument based on belief in the virgin birth is made.
b) If you are not just being dishonest, read up a bit about what the various motivations was for ancient royal and noble men genealogies. Don’t worry. If you dont want to buy the exhaustive knowledge we have on this, I will buy it for a dollar. Maybe the problem is modern man with his self absorbation needs to find another term for these ancient accounts than genealogy. I dont think the term is wrong, as the term “ancestor” doesnt leaves us with only one standard. Ancient rulers believed and / or claimed gods to be their ancestors for quite obvious reasons. There are some very clear heritage demands the supernaturally infused Messiah had to live up to. Could that be expressed in more than one way? Of cause Sherlock..
Nate,
As I said earlier I go for 1-1. Just as much as you go for 0-1. Here is a great work, to spread awareness.
Just one issue with much modern discussion concerns the various accounts of the ressurection. Was it an early church problem? Was it corrected? Apparently not. The vast majority of Christian tradition never took in the Diateresson or other even more obscure works.
I cant free the Christian traditions for making many errors supporting skepticism. “The Bible means what it says like yesterdays newspaper” is the battle cry of both the skeptics and the fundamentalists and hardline evangelicals in the USA and all those outside that emulalte either side.
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Nate,
Let’s see what the world would speak about as “evidence” in case the skeptics capitulate before we speak of evidence. Current situation has great impact on that.
The Bible is a witness to the world, believer and unbeliever. The believer upon coming to faith will rush to the water he is thirsty for (Revelation 21:6).
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Hi Joen,
I’m afraid I didn’t understand your last two points to me. Are you essentially declining to answer my questions?
Thanks,
Nate
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Nate,
Sometimes men when they argue want to trap the opponent in a vacuum, where the inexperienced rat is supposed to be trapped attempting to answer something the setup up excludes him from answering.
William rejects the ancient Jesus genealogies’ constructions because they don’t live up to modern standards. He wants me to agree they should speak live up to modern standards, although it is impossible on two levels; they are ancient and they are supernatural. If I disagree, I am “insane or lying”.
Your convinctions about the Bible’s failure can be summarized in;
“Of course, we’re all imperfect, so we just do the best we can. But if we were all-knowledgeable and all-powerful, we could definitely communicate in a way that would ensure we would be understood. Now imagine that the message we needed to communicate was the most important message anyone could ever receive — it didn’t just save lives, it saved them eternally. Wouldn’t you make sure you communicated it correctly?
Instead, as William and KC have pointed out (and as you’ve actually agreed with), the Bible seems to be a very human document. It contains mistakes, bad morality, bad history, bad science, prophecies that fall flat, etc. Yet it supposedly contains the most important message one could ever receive, and it supposedly comes from a perfect being. To me, that just doesn’t make sense.”
So you believe the – according to historic Christianity – heresy and historically irrelevant belief that the Bible is supposed to be a means of salvation. You also believe the heresy that the entire canon is to be seen as one book in the fullest sense. This belief is nothing else but simpleton sophistry. Some down the ages played with these thoughts but they were asserted full-assed by American Fundamentalism. I don’t believe in these tenants, never had. Faith is no. one full stop and everything written is subject to the spirits test.
I readily consider the various accusations against the Bible. The problem is that the vast majority of them are based on false assumptions. One example is the the abysmal comment that the Bible contains bad science. Well of cause I should remember where you came from, but that doesn’t seem like any excuse now. Now you see, don’t you? You have been liberated. So why do you continue to read modern thoughts into amazingly preserved ancient documents, continuing the newer tradition of denying poor ancient man the right to understand what is being said. Failed prophecies? Wtf..? We can’t even agree what they are supposed to mean. Yet, all these points you take to the scene or court with the verbal conviction of a Southern Baptist minister.
So we don’t agree that the Bible should be a Savior, we don’t agree about most of the premises of the accusations against the Bible. What is it you want evidence for again?
Thanks for the discussions anyway. They have helped me understand better both Skeptcism and Bible fundamentalism. How people think and how I might address such people at a later point.
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Here is what Bishop John Shelby Spong today has to say about Christianity and the New Testament, “The gospels, we need to state clearly, are not the dictated word or words of God, but are rather the time-bound and time-warped explanations of the Jesus experience, couched in the language and understandings of the first century. At the time the New Testament was written, no one knew that women had an egg cell, so the story of Jesus’ birth to a virgin could be used to explain the experience, which was that in Jesus they believed they had encountered something, which human life by itself was not capable of producing. In that time, we need to understand that no one quite understood what happens to the body at death. They could, therefore, reasonably assume that the death process could be reversed, if the reversal occurred within three days, after which the decaying of the body became obvious. When the New Testament was written, no one knew about germs, viruses, tumors or cardiovascular disease and so sickness was interpreted as divine punishment for sins committed. That was why it made sense to treat sickness by offering prayers and sacrifices. If we assume, as fundamentalist Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics still seem to do, that the gospel narratives are in fact literal renditions of what actually happened in time or in history, then religion has become idolatrous. It has invested the perfection of God in something that is in fact a human creation. By literalizing the Bible, religious people have also unknowingly literalized the world view of the first century that assumed that anything that could not be understood by first century minds must be a miracle, explained only by an appeal to the presence of a supernatural power. So the presumably “inerrant” Bible of Protestant fundamentalism and the presumably “infallible” theological doctrines of Roman Catholicism, become nonsensical in the 21st century. A Christianity based on those outdated ideas can never be compelling to 21st century people unless they are willing and able to close their minds to modern knowledge. Biblical inerrancy is therefore not just ignorance, it is a distortion of both truth and humanity. To quote the Bible to oppose equality for women or justice and dignity for homosexual people is to confuse the cultural fears of yesterday with ultimate truth. It is also to be pathetically and profoundly uninformed.”
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Joe,
I have trouble understanding why you would believe in the Birth, Death and Resurrection stories of Jesus since their only source is from the fallible bible ? Why would these stories be any more believable than the other stories you readily admit are false ? I again assert you would have never heard of the name Jesus if the fallible bible did not exist .
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