Palm Sunday: The Fickle Public
Today is “Palm Sunday.” Here is how the gospel of Matthew describes it (Chapter 21):
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:5 “Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
This description always amazes me, because in just 5 days the crowds (with how many of the exact same people?) will demand that Pontius Pilate nail Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth, to a cross.
It’s astonishing how this can happen–such a turnaround in so short a time–but I know it is plausible, even if we set aside me believing in the Bible as a historical document. One time I actually toyed with the idea (I can’t remember if this was when I was an atheist or not) of trying to write a play that is set during Holy Week (i.e. the week that Jesus is crucified and then comes back from the dead) but tells it from an unusual perspective, so the audience forgets that it’s a standard story. (The effect would be similar to what they achieved during the beginning and middle of Inglourious Basterds.) Then at the climax of the play, the actors playing the Pharisees etc. get the audience all fired up and get them to start chanting, “Crucify him!” Then the curtain drops and the lights go up, and that’s the end of the play. And everyone gasps and realizes what just happened.
Joseph Sobran once had a great line that I will paraphrase: Say what you will about the death penalty, but the fact that we used it to kill the Son of God is surely a strike against it.
“This description always amazes me, because in just 5 days the crowds (with how many of the exact same people?) will demand that Pontius Pilate nail Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth, to a cross.”
Why does it have to be the same people? Is that what’s written in the NT?
If you look ahead to the account where Pilate lets the people choose between Jesus and Barabas, it’s “the whole city” and “the crowds” both times. In an ancient city in a relative backwater, as Jerusalem was, you didn’t have enough people in the general population for there not to be significant overlap between the two groups.
Plus, these were Jewish crowds both times. People fervently anticipating the Messiah the first time, and people wanting a concession from the Romans for Passover a few days later. The same people come out for the special occasions, you know how it is.
I guess only a nasty skeptic would point out how wildly implausible the notion of a city full of Jews hailing a ‘messiah’ riding in this way is. But if you learn something about the Judaism of the time (or any time really) you will see it is.
I will leave the second half of the fable, the bloodthirsty bit, the his blood be upon our heads bit, for the believers here to deal with. They seem so unaccountably proud of it.
This is why I ask whether or not Jesus declared himself the Messiah. As far as I know (or remember), anybody who declares himself the Messiah is a false prophet, according to Jewish scriptures.
For Christian believers Judaism is just that quaint ‘beta release’ of the true faith. The actual content of the faith is of no interest, because it’s only real purpose is to provide a rich source of prophecies (conveniently written down only long afterwards) for Jesus to fulfill.
Here’s a question. Why were there money changers in the temple?
that’s simple – because you could not use Roman currency to buy a sacrifice that would be offered up to Yahweh in the temple
another one of those religious roles in the beta format – not that the next format was much better – glitches, glitches, glitches
Ken B wrote:
For Christian believers Judaism is just that quaint ‘beta release’ of the true faith. The actual content of the faith is of no interest…
I understand what makes you say that–since I don’t feel I am obliged to stone my son if he disrespects me, etc.–but even so your statement is wrong. In Sunday school just yesterday we spent a lot of time in Psalms to see the “scriptural support” for some doctrinal point that the Westminster Confession had made.
So anyway, I just want to be clear for outsiders who are reading, though he holds himself up as an expert, Ken B. makes false statements when describing what Christians think.
Bob, this is ironic. You cite yourself doing what I say you do — proof-texting, reading Jewish scripture not to understand Judaism but to bolster Christian dogma with selective reading, hunting for fulfilled prophecy — as evidence I have erred.
In Kantian terms you just described to me your SS group treating Jewish beliefs as a means not an end
Which is my point exactly.
Look: you made the argument about throngs of Jews greeting their eagerly awaited Messiah riding in on a donkey. That just is not plausible. . It’s let’s attribute to the Jews what we need for our exegesis
I know you’re mostly just trying to distract but quote one example where I claimed to be an expert on Christianity. In fact I have disavowed it. I have argued it’s all very complex in those early years.
Ken, again, you are wrong. Maybe there are Christians doing what you say, but not the hardcore evangelicals with whom I associate. They very often give the historical context–i.e. explaining Jewish customs etc.–so we can understand what the heck is going on. If your point is, “These Christians are actually Christians, not jews, what a bunch of hypocrites,” OK. But you are simply wrong when you say we don’t care about the actual content of Judaism.
Bob: when you say you learn about Jewish customs to understand what is going on, do you mean so you can understand why passage X counts as a prophecy or explains remark Y that Jesus said?
For the vast majority of Christians (Catholics, Orthodox, Coptics, and presumably Episcopalians and Lutherans), this is a false statement: The Old Testament reveals God’s will in the New Testament. For example, the prohibition against drinking blood specifically says something along the lines of ‘because to do so would be to take upon yourself the life of the creature.’ Thus, when Christ commands us to drink His blood, He’s commanding us to take His life upon us.
Without the bloody sacrifices of the OT, the sacrifices of Jesus in the NT make little sense.
Maybe I just don’t see what you are saying Drigan but this “The Old Testament reveals God’s will in the New Testament. For example [bit of christian practice explained]” seems a prime example of what I mean. Perhaps you object to my mocking tone (beta) but you seem to confrim the content: Judaism is corrected and perfected in Christianity.
Very nice point about the blood drinking.
Yeah, I definitely didn’t like the tone, but what I was specifically objecting to was the implication that Christians needn’t pay attention to the OT.
I don’t have any objection to your modified statement. (“Judaism is corrected and perfected in Christianity. “)
@Drigan: Oh I never meant they *needn’t* pay attention to the OT. Personally I just love to lumber RPM with leviticus and the walking god of the penttateuch. Just that their attentions to anything Jewish were inevitably selective and tendentious, from a a position of assumed superiority.
Details, please?
What is it about second Temple Judaism that you think
a)Christians don’t properly understand, but should,
or
b)actually contradicts canonical Gospel accounts of NT events?
He doesn’t literally say “I am the messiah,” that I can immediately recall.
He does, however say “*I AM* he,” when asked if he was Jesus. *I AM* is the Old Testament name of God (The exact pronunciation of which has now been forgotten because we have the alternate name of “Jesus.”)
He also responds to Peter’s statement “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” by saying that God has revealed this information to Peter.
So you could make an argument that Jesus didn’t claim to be the Messiah . . . but it would be a very weak argument.
I would really love to know where you’re getting the idea that anyone claiming to be the Messiah is false . . . Please post that if you run across it.
Yeah, different gospels say different things. (Have I mentioned that before?) This particular example is a real problem with the gospel-as-history-its-like-you-were-there crowd, but an easy point for those who understand each source was a teaching aid codifying the beliefs of its source community and reflecting their own set of tales.
Those two things (account as history and account as confirmation of beliefs) are not mutually exclusive.
If you think the events really happened, then the Gospel writers were clearly trying to recall and record those events for the benefit of others into the future. If you don’t think the events really happened (or not nearly in the way as the gospels say), then you think the Gospel writers were just dudes with an agenda and got creative. Looking at the text itself almost never confirms which theory is correct. It all goes back to presuppositions, almost always.
Ever read the “heretical” Gospel of St. Thomas? What do you think of it? Is it “legit”?
Thomas is interesting. A couple of us have recommended to RPM and other believers that that look into it. It is quite legit in the sense that it was a text used by a faith community at the time. Same as the 4 canonical ones.
The only excuses for not reading it that I can think of are that one claims adherence to a faith with magisterial authority which created the Bible (Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Anglican, etc.) or they believe that the Bible was given fully formed with a table of contents.
“It is quite legit in the sense that it was a text used by a faith community at the time.”
And communism and libertarianism are both legit because they are both political systems used by a society at a certain time.
If you go coarse enough, you can make almost any two things similar.
The non-canonical gospels are fascinating for a variety of reasons. But recommending that a Christian believer “look into them” is just not taking the believer’s own faith seriously.
It would be like if an atheist were wondering how to solve some moral paradox in his life, and I told him to “look into” Pat Robertson on the topic.
My comment about legit and communities, to explain the obvious, means this. We have a bunch of gospels. We have them only because they were created and used by faith communities in the early years of christianity. These gospels include the ones called Thomas. Jude, Peter, matthew, mark, luke, John, and more. If you want to know about the historical Jesus and what he taught, there is no a priori reason to think Luke is ‘legit’ but Thomas is not. There is only special pleading and circularity.
Not quite, though. It is, for one, equally circular to claim that they must all be equally valid. To the extent you try to distinguish them as more valid vs. less valid, then you are doing exactly what the early Church did in the 3rd and 4th centuries. They came up with the list of reliable Gospels (believed to be inspired by God, working *within* the faith communities that produced them for their own agenda), accepting some and denying others. There is no a priori reason to think they screwed this up, except special pleading and circularity.
The early church used actual criteria to attempt to judge which gospels were reliably inspired writing of actual apostles, and which were not. For instance, if it had not been in common liturgical use all the way back, then it was out. They didn’t just arbitrarily say “We like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,” but “We hate Thomas and Judas!” (Some might say that’s how the infamous Jesus Seminar made its judgments in the mid 1990s, but now that would be rude of me to point out.) They laid out criteria, and then judged which books did and did not meet those criteria.
If I believe X is divinely inspired, it doesn’t matter how interesting Y is. I’m not just automatically obligated to accept Y as also inspired. Obviously.
And, to be clear, the problem is with telling a believer to “look into” a non-canonical text as some kind of corrective or “better” account of matters that are fundamental to his faith, such as moral teachings or historical accounts of faith-important events.
The Christian church (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestants following the Catholics on this one) has defined its canon of revelation a certain way. There are always other writings in a certain time and culture that *might* have been chosen, but weren’t. There is no decent way, especially at this point, to decide that one source was more accurate than another, and so those in the faith community are just going to have to be left alone on that point I’m afraid.
What you describe is a faith in the Christian bureaucracy, not a faith in Jesus. If it was all about Jesus, then any evidence related to him would be on the table.
Blessed art thou, O Committee Members on high?
This is just not a sophisticated discussion of issues that have been given far better treatment over the centuries, frankly.
The fundamental problem is unavoidable. There is a distinction between understanding what an authority says on the one hand and identifying the authority on the other. Christianity, by definition, accepts the (in Christian counting) 66 books of the Bible as authoritative. If you suggest other books, then you are suggesting a new religion. A new religion that might be Christianity-like (like, say, Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnessing), but by suggesting a different canon you are suggesting a different *source* of authority.
The canon of Scripture is where Christians get their “data” as to what the items of faith actually are. The things to be believed are the things in the Scriptures. In order to know about the Jesus in whom she trusts, the believer must already accept which scriptures give her that information.
(Of course, there are disagreements among Christians about what *else* besides the Scriptures constitute the proper authority on what is to be believed. Roman Catholicism also posits the teaching magisterium of the Church as an additional authoritative source of things-to-be-believed, along with the canonical scriptures. Protestants hold that Scripture alone is authoritative in this way. But both hold that the canonical scriptues are authoritative.)
(OK OK, there’s one other wrinkle. By the middle ages the Roman Catholic Church had also come to teach that the apocrypha was part of the canonical scriptures, while Protestants later denied them that status. So in this sense Protestantism and Cahtolicism really do have different sources of authority. Though, again, both agree that the Gospel of Matthew is canonical, and that the Gospel of Thomas is not.)
“If you suggest other books, then you are suggesting a new religion.”
Perhaps, but if that’s a problem, you’re just making my point for me. It’s not about the truth of who or what Jesus was or wasn’t. It’s about membership in a religious organization. It’s about brand faithfulness.
“In order to know about the Jesus in whom she trusts, the believer must already accept which scriptures give her that information.”
Again, faith in committees.
“(Of course, there are disagreements among Christians about what *else* besides the Scriptures constitute the proper authority on what is to be believed.”
Is this a case for the application of reason or the mindless chanting of “My committee is better than yours!”?
“…Protestantism and Cahtolicism really do have different sources of authority.”
Exactly… which shows the flaw in putting your faith in a bureaucracy.
“Though, again, both agree that the Gospel of Matthew is canonical, and that the Gospel of Thomas is not.)”
Yes, and the Thomasian committee disagrees. Now what do we do?
“Yes, and the Thomasian committee disagrees. Now what do we do?”
Well, what many people have done is locate themselves within the “committee” that actually has prevailed. Some scholars like to study the Gospel of Thomas and rub their beards, but the actual functioning religion at this point is Christianity. For better or worse.
The fundamental thing about these Sunday posts is that Bob simply lays out where he is coming from, and then all the atheists try to say “that’s stupid.” But sometimes *people just disagree*, and there is not an objectively reasonable way to settle the matter. That’s my whole schtick in these things. Trying to point out that the atheist war parties that keep stomping through here can’t prove what they think they can prove.
So, case in point: yes, there are other stories involving Jesus from roughly the same time period besides those that are in the official Christian canon. But traditional Christianity has judged those other books to be non-authoritative, thus why it left them out of the canon. At this point, there are Christians who submit to that judgment of the historical church, and there are non-Christians who want to make a big stink of it. What nobody is going to do is “prove” that the other side is wrong.
The Gospel of Thomas (or Judas, etc.) exists, congratulations. Christians do not accept it as authoritative for their faith or practice. You think they should? Please make your argument. If it doesn’t convince them, it’s probably not because they’re a bunch of dumn boobs. But maybe that’s why; it would depend on your actual argument I suppose. (So far, you boobifying them with this approach is not looking very promising, based on what’s been said so far.)
“Again, faith in committees.”
More accurately, faith in the God whose providence is at work through those committees.
This is like arguing “bible contradictions” with you guys. Except for a few, the vast majority of them are just dumb and hamfisted refusals to read the text with any flexibility. Similarly, here this “trusting in a committee” problem is a non-problem. It’s not that nobody can answer it. It’s that there’s nothing worth answering.
If we’re arguing about the battle of Tripoli, and I think books X Y and Z are the best sources that tell about it, I am under no obligation to accept this other book A just because you think it’s just as good as the others. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Make your case.
When it comes to ancient events that form the basis for a classic religion, the ability to make a source for this other book is going to be difficult. But, hey, knock yourself out. Prove that the Gospel of Thomas tells us something about Jesus that Christians have to take seriously and modify their faith on that basis.
Pointing out that the Gospel of Thomas exists proves nothing. This is not suppressed information. The fact that Christians do not accept the Gospel of Thomas as authoritative does not prove that they are close-minded. If you showed some reason why it should be taken seriously, and they refused, then that *might* make them close-minded. But we ain’t there yet, bro. And in fact, we very likely cannot get there, because…
The extra wrinkle of this being a matter of religion only makes this all the more difficult for you. Not in a “Christians are so incalcitrant” way, but in a “your tools are inadequate to the task at hand” kind of way. Christians do not read the canonical gospels, like what they hear, and then say, “those are the true scriptures!” No, they already “receive” the canonical scriptures as the true ones, and then they see themselves as obligated to believe what they say, *including when they say something that might be difficult*. The issue for reliability, if you are a believer, is “was this book inspired by God?” Christianity holds that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are (as regards the life of Jesus), and none of the others floating around in the first two centuries were.
You want Christians to reconsider THAT belief and think that the Gospel of Thomas is ALSO inspired by God? No, of course not, because you think it’s irrational to believe that ANYTHING is inspired by God (since there is no God). Fine, but then make your philosophical argument against God’s existence, or against the proposition that God might reveal himself through ancient writings even if he did exist, etc. Don’t wave around the Gospel of Thomas as though it proves anything whatsoever, because it doesn’t.
“Well, what many people have done is locate themselves within the ‘committee’ that actually has prevailed.”
Understandable, but the person devoted to truth would consider whether the committee that prevailed was correct in their conclusions.
“…sometimes *people just disagree*, and there is not an objectively reasonable way to settle the matter.”
I think the thesis of the atheists that post here is that there is an objectively reasonable way to settle the matter, or at least proceed ever nearer to the truth.
“That’s my whole schtick in these things. Trying to point out that the atheist war parties that keep stomping through here can’t prove what they think they can prove.”
You’ve said that a number of times, but it seems like an unnecessarily vague claim to make. A more specific claim would be to say the Gospel of Thomas has no bearing on the real history of Jesus.
“At this point, there are Christians who submit to that judgment of the historical church, and there are non-Christians who want to make a big stink of it. What nobody is going to do is ‘prove’ that the other side is wrong.”
In an attempt to cut through the fog, I will posit the atheist thesis as being that the gospel of Thomas is relevant to determining the accuracy, coherence, or lack thereof of the stories surrounding Jesus.
Do you disagree?
“The Gospel of Thomas (or Judas, etc.) exists, congratulations. Christians do not accept it as authoritative for their faith or practice. You think they should? Please make your argument.”
I wouldn’t argue that anyone should accept any aspect of any religion. At the same time, if you’re going to accept one gospel, why not accept them all?
” if you’re going to accept one gospel, why not accept them all?”
If you’re going to accept one account of the Battle of Thermopylae, why not accept them all?
If you’re going to accept one account of the fight in the schoolyard, why not accept them all?
If you’re going to accept one set of texts as divinely inspired, why not accept all texts as divinely inspired?
Clearly, this way of reasoning is uncompelling, right?
“In an attempt to cut through the fog, I will posit the atheist thesis as being that the gospel of Thomas is relevant to determining the accuracy, coherence, or lack thereof of the stories surrounding Jesus.
Do you disagree?”
I agree that Thomas could provide corroborating evidence for what is already in the canonical books, but I disagree that Thomas could ever be used to disprove the canonical texts. If you believe they are all equally likely to be true, then there is no reason to trust a Thomas story over a Luke story or a John story. The atheist thesis is in trouble here, as it amounts to the arbitrary claim that Christians ought to listen to a certain ancient text instead of the ones they already listen to. But why? “If you’re gonna listen to one, why not listen to ’em all,” is frankly a silly argument.
And, again, we are talking about matters of revelation here (according to Christian belief). So, Christians read Matthew-John for information about Jesus and other matters because they believe that God inspired the writing of those particular books. They do not believe that God inspired the writing of any of the other alleged gospels. Why should Christians change their mind on this point? The fact that you as an atheist reject all claims to divine revelation does not mean that believers must do the converse and *accept* all claims to revelation.
“If you’re going to accept one account of the Battle of Thermopylae, why not accept them all?”
I see what you did there, but I asked a question; I didn’t make a statement. I didn’t claim that if you accept one gospel you must accept them all. I’d like to know why, specifically, Thomas was not deemed to be the word of god.
I generally agree with what you intended to convey, but a few minor quibbles:
‘Christian’ by definition has nothing to do with following the Bible, but rather following Christ.
Luther adopted the Masoretic OT because he wanted to get back to ‘What the Jews taught as the OT.’ Thus, Luther removed books commonly in use to pare it down to the Masoretic text that the Jews of his day used as their OT; Catholics didn’t add anything at that point in time, although the Council of Trent formalized what books were to be included in the Bible. Prior to this, all Christians used the Septuagint OT text because it was what Jesus and the Apostles quoted.
Lastly, there is a difference between “Roman Catholic” and “Catholic Church.” Roman Catholics include Catholics who worship with a certain ritual style, one of ~23 styles that are present within the Catholic Church. Catholics are any baptized religious adherents to the teaching of the Catholic Magisterium with the Pope at their head.
@Drigan: Well you’ve wandered past the boudaries of my reading. One small but vital point. The quotations from Jesus match the LXX. (Is that uniformly true” or just mostly)That is not quite the same thing as saying Jesus used that text. Our sources are mostly in greek after all. When I quote him I usually prefer the ESV. I doubt that matcjhes what he said exactly.
Ken B: I was intending to be responding to Xon . . . I feel like there has to be a better format for comments. *shrugs*
You’re right that the quotes are difficult, but the best way to tell is by points of inflection that would be present in some languages but not in others. I’m not a biblical scholar myself, but I’ve been informed by those that are that it’s pretty clear cut when you take the body of quotes as a whole. I’m not trying to prove anything, and I definitely encourage you to do your own research, but this *is* what my sources have said.
@drigan: I guess this is where we call Hebrew writing a defective script and get called nasty names.
🙂
This is true if you grant the religion is a closed minded dogma shop. It is false if the religion claims to care about the historical evidence. RPM claims to base his belief on tales of martyrs being true and historical.
Ken, I’m sorry but I still don’t think that’s right. Christianity does indeed care about what actually happened historically, and therefore about historical evidence. You haven’t really offered any reasons to think that the canonical gospel accounts are not basically correct. It’s not as though you are presenting knock-down arguments and so I am retreating into anti-intellectualism. I’m saying that the kinds of arguments you would need to prevail objectively in this kind of a debate are not available to you (or to anyone).
There are other gospels besides the ones in Scriptures. But no Christian scholar has ever denied this. It is no big secret. Christians accept the divine authority of the ones, and not of the others. This isn’t difficult, right?
Now, from here you can try to undermine the divine authority for the canonical gospels in various ways. But the mere existence of other gospels ain’t gonna do it.
Xon: “Christianity does indeed care about what actually happened historically, and therefore about historical evidence.”
Xon’s evil twin:”I agree that Thomas could provide corroborating evidence for what is already in the canonical books, but I disagree that Thomas could ever be used to disprove the canonical texts.
Xon’s conscience: “And, again, we are talking about matters of revelation here.”
Since I’m not a Christian, or if I am I’m an extremely liberal one who does not accept the inerrancy of Scripture, my conscience is really not involved here.
The two “twins” are not opposed to each other. The two statements are perfectly compatible with one another. I’m not sure why you don’t see that.
If a person believes that X is inspired by God, and some other book Y actually says that X is wrong, then it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that Y is incorrect. After all, X is inspired by God. I understand why atheists find this reasoning troubling, but it really is only so if you already are convinced that God does not exist. If you are not convinced of that, then the possiblity that God would inspire a particular text as a guide for his creatures is not unreasonable on its face. And if you are a member of a faith community that receives a particular text as the inspired text, then other texts are simply not held at the same level.
This is not to say that you could not in principle disprove something from the received text. If X makes a historical claim and you can disprove that those events actually took place, for instance, then reasonable people might very well start to question whether X really is divinely inspired. However, *when making that kind of argument against X*, you can’t just use some other text from the same time period, like Y. Why on earth should anyone, even on your own atheistic terms, take Y’s claim about what really happened as more authoritative than X’s? There is no way to do so. You are left with philosohpical arguments against God’s existence, which is fine (I’m a philosopher). But you really can’t get much traction trying to disprove the allegedly inspired text with some alternative text’s rival claims.
If the resurrection didn’t happen, Christianity is done. That’s clear. It’s a historical claim. But disproving the resurrection is not a matter of pulling out some other ancient text that says “Nope, it didn’t happen.” Why should we believe the denial book over the affirmation book?
(This is not what’s going on here, as none of the gospels deny the resurrection, though some of them don’t mention it, including Mark when we remove the added-on portion at the very end. I’m just pointing out the logic of how these competing claims can be put against each other. It’s really pretty hard to do so, unless you have some good reason for taking one text as more reliable than the others, and then using that text as a sort of “baseline” to compare the others against. But nobody argues with a straight face that we should do that with something like the Gospel of Thomas.)
My first thought after reading the “Gospel of St. Thomas” was, “Ya, I see why they didn’t include that one.” It seemed like a sloppy list of sayings that were similar to the other gospels, but nothing in it ever struck me as interesting or profound. It’s been a while, though.
Parts of it are weird indeed. Like this bit
That weirdness is reason to take it seriously. Thomas could well be the oldest gospel. It clearly represents what some early Christians, who traced their community back to the apostles, believed about the man. If it surprises that suggests that the more conventional picture we have is one that has been heavily edited.
It’s ironic you make that argument, Ken. It was precisely because Jesus first appeared to women (after the resurrection) etc. that some modern evangelicals claim that the gospels are authentic. I.e., they are arguing that if a bunch of men before 500 AD were going to invent some stories to back up their doctrines, they wouldn’t have made their leader unappealing to the biases of the male readers like that. Sure, have this “Jesus” walk on water, come back from the dead, etc., but why have him interact with women in such a scandalous fashion?
If your theory is that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were doctored up by Christians in 1850, then I get what you are saying. But that’s not what you are arguing, right? You’re saying they were faked / edited etc. at some point when women were still totally inferior in the culture. So why would those writers make Jesus do things that would disturb the biases of potential converts to the cause? It would be like me making up stories of Murray Rothbard being a vegan, in an attempt to win over Republican conservatives to libertarianism.
Bob, Appearing to women does seem to pass the criterion of dissimilarity (I left a long comment on another thread on this topic). Which suggests that the stories of appearing to women were older than the redaction to written form we have for that gospel. The stories were in the sources, oral or written, that Luke, say, used.
Why would Luke (again as an example) pass on such stories? Because he believed them, and his community believed them.
Why does that mean that in the process of oral transmission, and teaching, and in the context of evolving beliefs about god’s plan and nature, that changes would not creep in? It doesn’t. And to deal with various gospels you will end up arguing they did get corrupted or changed — because they will flatly contradict your fab four.
Now let’s look at Mark. the oldest versions of Mark seem not to contain the last few verses. Someone changed Mark, either adding (likely) or dropping (less likely) the tail bit. That need not be due to deliberate snidely whiplash devilry. Communities have beliefs and these beliefs affect the writings they produce and copy, and so what comes down to us.
More. I wonder how Bob and other believers conceive the production of books in semiliterate poor first century Palestine. Need a copy off to the Kinkos? No, copies will be precious and difficult. Changes will creep in, and pass muster, naturally as long as they satidfy the felt need for the copy. This can involve, changes, additions, deletions. We can PROVE this happened with manual copying. (And it’s even a stronger effect in oral tansmission.) As Xon notes we don’t have the original manuscript. We have copies of copies of copies of ..
Sure, and this is why Christian scholarship has attempted to use textual analysis to discern where possible what the original wording of the texts actually is.
The ESV, for example, is some scholar’s best current guess as to what the original Bible actually said. The fact that we have copies of copies doesn’t mean we are hopelessly in the dark when it comes to knowing what the original might have been.
Lay believers in the pews don’t always know how complicated this can sometimes be, but we shouldn’t expect them to, either.
“It seemed like a sloppy list of sayings that were similar to the other gospels, but nothing in it ever struck me as interesting or profound.”
But could it be the word of god?
To answer that question, the early Church used the criterion of apostolicity. More or less:
1. The book has to have been written by an apostle (one of Jesus’ disciples, or a handful of other first-generation church leaders who had known Jesus personally)
2. The book must have been in common use in the church (the Church was making these determinations in the mid-to-late 3rd century).
(I remember being taught this as four different criteria for apostolicity when I was a spring chicken studying these things in college, but these two cover the gist)
So, the Church considered and answered the question of “could it be the word of God,” when it comes to the Gospels of Thomas or Judas, by saying “NO, we don’t believe that it is.” The Church in the 3rd century did not believe these books were actually written by the apostles Thomas and Judas, and even if they were somehow, they had not been in consistent use by the church from the earliest days.
Of course, we could try to say the early Church was simply wrong about all that. Though the evidence gets awfully thin when making those kinds of armchair-quarterback judgments 1700 years later.
But the very existence of these alternative gospels doesn’t provide some deep challenge to a believer’s faith. “OH no, there are other gospels out there?? I’d better sew them into my home bible, then!” The fact that there were other gospels is precisely *why* the early church felt the need to deal with the issue, and came up with an authoritative list of what was canon and what was not. Now, the very fact that they had to make that judgment is used as proof that they got it wrong.
But not really, because that’s not even your argument, right? This whole thing is facetious, because really you think it’s just stupid for anyone to believe that any text could be divinely inspired, whether Matthew or John or Thomas or anything else. But the fact that you hold the view that all texts are equally uninspired does not mean that believers are obligated to hold all texts as equally inspired.
The problem is the circularity. Which is on full display here. Your conscience recognized it, and I tipped my hat to him.
Ken, yet again, j’accuse. This is not “circular” reasoning, or at least it is not circular in any kind of bad way. If you spell out your own argument “from the texts”, it will end up being “circular,” too.
There is a serious lack of philosophical sophistication in these “gotchas.” Which is funny, given that that’s what the atheists normally pride themselves on.
“1. The book has to have been written by an apostle (one of Jesus’ disciples, or a handful of other first-generation church leaders who had known Jesus personally)”
And where is the proof that any of the gospels were written by apostles? From what I can tell, the scholarly consensus appears to be that the gospels were written after the apostles were all dead.
“2. The book must have been in common use in the church (the Church was making these determinations in the mid-to-late 3rd century).”
Common use has no bearing on truth.
So, what can we say about this ancient committee? They were wrong about criteria one, and criteria two is bogus. It has no bearing on the truth of the gospels, and a lot of bearing on ancient church politics.
Or, since God exists, He guides earthly matters, including church politics, in a way that produces an end product that is reliable. You are pitting “church politics” against “it’s inspired by God,” as though they are mutually exclusive. But they are plainly not.
The church historically has never said that the Bible fell out of heaven, or was dictated word by word by angels. It has *always* been claimed that regular men wrote down what they thought was best, based on their own goals in writing at the time, and that God as at work within that process. It is not an either/or.
This argument does not work:
1. The men who wrote the Bible, or the men in the church who approved the books of the Bible, had their own agendas going on.
2. ?
3. Atheism!
OR
3. The Bible was not actually inspired by God after all!
You are free to make your own philsophical argument against the particular criteria the early church used in determining whether a book was apostolic or not. You think a rational church should use some other criteria? Make your case.
But so far, you’re striking out. Sure, many modern scholars think that *none* of the NT writings were close to the time of Jesus. But what evidence do they have? Why are they right and the early church, operating much closer to the actual time of the writings, was wrong? Without actually providing arguments for late dates, there is no reason to think the ancient Church got this wrong.
And “common use has no bearing on truth.” Except it does if you believe that the whole reason God reveals Himself in a written text is to give believers a common source material for belief, life, and worship. Which is, of course, precisely what Christianity teaches.
So, if God inspired a Gospel account, He would presumably do it in such a way that it comes into the church’s hands early on, and remains in use from that point forward. This presumption is perfectly reasonable, and so the early Church rejected books that it thought did not match this pedigree.
“Hey, some folks over in that region over there are using the Gospel of Thomas for sermons and Sunday School (a joke, people). Should we all be using that book?”
“Well, no, because if Thomas wrote it and God wanted it to be in our Bible, He would have revealed it in such a way that it would have been there from the beginning, and would have spread from Judea to all the regions where Christianity is now found. Just like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did. There is no region of Christendom that is asking “What’s this ‘Luke’ book some people are talking about?” That’s because Luke was there in the earliest days, and has been copied and transported everywhere since. But we have no such record for the Gospel of Thomas. It is only in use in some regions, not others, and/or we have no record of it being in use in the earliest days. Therefore, Thomas is out. You know what, though, we should do a council and sort this out officially, so people won’t be confused.”
Now, you can argue that the early Church got this stuff wrong on the facts, sure. Go ahead, name that tune. Why do you believe that
a) the Gospel of Thomas (or Judas or whatever) is just as old as the Gospels of Matthew-John,
OR
b) none of the Gospels are early enough to be truly apostolic.
I know there are arguments out there by “liberal” scholars arguing for late dates of the four canonical gospels. I also know that there are decent rebuttals from the orthodox to their points, and the whole thing is at best a stalemate.
But let’s actually talk about it, with specifics. Go ahead.
This description always amazes me, because in just 5 days the crowds (with how many of the exact same people?) will demand that Pontius Pilate nail Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth, to a cross.
It’s astonishing how this can happen–such a turnaround in so short a time–but I know it is plausible
That kind of thing happened routinely in the French Revolution. Robespierre was ordering executions how many days before they executed him?
(No, not trying to draw a more general equivalence between Robespierre and Jesus!)
Republicans changed their minds about the individual mandate and Democrats about wars and civil liberties almost as quickly.
Nice.
1) Maybe they didn’t believe he was the son of god. Or maybe they thought he was, but changed their mind after 5 days of his company.
2) “2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.””
Did Jesus just trump property rights?
No because when the owner says something and knows what they are wanted for, he is going to send them willingly.
Don’t try this at home, as you are not omniscient. If you were, however, things might be different.
Most of the time, when people say they’re from the government, they comply with theft. It’s still theft though.
I’d rather not screw with the son of god. Or even a local cult leader.
i.e. duress
Joe, if Jesus is God, then He owns everything anyway. So no theft.
And if Jesus isn’t God, then him taking some animals is the least of his offenses.
“…if Jesus is God, then He owns everything anyway. So no theft.”
Yay, slavery!
Makes Exodus seem kind of ironic, though. It’s supposed to be all about liberation, but I guess it’s just the freedom to be enslaved by an invisible master (one who occasionally forces you to eat your children).
Thomas Aquinas is rolling his eyes. Yes, there are paradoxes involved here. Being reductionistic about it (“yay, slavery!”) is no solution, though.
If God exists as the being of being and the primary cause of all that comes to be, then everything He creates (which would have to be everything that ain’t Him) must be, in some significant sense, His. So, in this sense, being owned by another being is impossible to avoid as soon as you acknowledge any kind of robust theism (i.e., a supreme creator who remains involved in the created world after creating it).
But, in another sense, to be “owned” by God is true freedom, because if we are owned by God, then we are not justly owned by anyone else.
At the level of what philosophers used to call “secondary causes,” human beings are self-owning. At the level of “primary causation,” God owns everything.
“…to be “owned” by God is true freedom, because if we are owned by God, then we are not justly owned by anyone else.”
At most, you would have freedom from HUMAN masters, but not true freedom when your god can take your donkeys and force you to eat your own children.
Comparative analysis would reveal certain human masters to be preferable to the “loving” and “just” god that commits atrocities against its “free slaves”.
I mean, thanks for sharing. Don’t go over-the-top-or-anything.
I’m not coming at this as a theist per se, much less as a Christian. This diatribing is really quite unphilosophical.
“I mean, thanks for sharing. Don’t go over-the-top-or-anything.”
lol, yeah, I used caps and a lot of quotes there. The caps was because I never took the time to figure out how to type italics. I just researched it, though so:
test 1
test 2
And the quotes were to indicate that I don’t consider disproportionate punishment and massacring innocents to be loving or just (also, to highlight the contradiction inherent in the concept of a free slave).
“I’m not coming at this as a theist per se, much less as a Christian. This diatribing is really quite unphilosophical.”
It wasn’t intended as a diatribe, although the caps and quotes may have given it that appearance. You may notice that I actually made some points above:
1. Freedom, in the sense you defined it, would not be freedom in the sense most people define it.
2. God has behaved more tyrannically at times than any slave master, so the appeal of being god’s property – as apposed to the property of another human – is not as clear as you implied.
Again, you are free at the level of human interaction, but you are not free to be “unowned” by the one who created you. This provides you with security against your fellow man, who absolutely does *not* have the right to take your donkey. (i.e., “Who do you think you are?”)
But most rational people, if they believed that God wanted their donkey, absolutely would have no problem with him having it. They wouldn’t simply acquiesce, they would say “Sure, it’s his to do with as he wills, after all.” This idea that an absolute notion of property rights has to be drawn up in such a way that even God becomes a thief is an atheist hobby horse that has no legs.
It’s just one more thing you are adding on to libertarianism/anarchism, making it appeal to people who are already like you on religious matters, but turning off people who are religious. Libertarianism does not entail atheism, or that God is a thief.
There is no reason why belief in God should entail defeatism about your “enslavement to the diivne” rather than the more optimistic outlook I have described (and I didn’t make it up; it’s a pretty standard way that monotheists put these things together).
Why does he own everything? He created the universe thousands of years ago. As far as we can tell, he’s abandoned most of his property. Him coming back millennia later and confiscating human projects is clearly theft.
So, you’re an atheist, but if you pretend to be a theist for a moment, you’re going to insist that we all be the deist kind of theist, and hold that God has been an absentee landlord over the universe? Got it.
What about the view that God has not been absent at all? That’s another alternative. And, oh yeah, it just happens to be the one that Christians (and others) believe.
I didn’t say God had been completely absent. I said he’s abandoned MOST of his property.
Surely theists admit that God doesn’t intervene MOST of the time, right? Like if I go to the store and get a dog, God probably isn’t intervening in any way that would give him ownership over the dog?
Enlighten me please.
You should check into that donkey and a colt thing. Count the beasts in the other gospels, look into various forms of repetition as rhetoric.
There’s an old John Ford movie where someone, might even be Ben Johnson (speaking of play writing), rides two horses, a foot on each.
It probably wasn’t the pharisees whipping up the crowd, seeing as how Jesus was almost certainly a pharisee himself (he was “zealous for the law”).
More likely the sadducees, whose entire focus was on the temple and were therefore vulnerable to being forced to cooperate with the Romans.
Keep this firmly in mind, the killing of Jesus was entirely a Roman operation from beginning to end, and it’s unlikely that many Jews actually wanted to see their king killed. But they were forced to make a choice: Jesus, or Barabbas (Bar Abbas, “son of the Rabbi”). Apparently they decided it was better that the heir be spared and his father killed.
Unlike Bob I will cite a reference or two
http://www.amazon.com/The-Historical-Figure-Jesus-Sanders/dp/0140144994/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
Sanders is a firm believer in the reality of Jesus, and amongst scholars leans far more than say Ehrman or Borg to the idea that the gospels-can-be-reliable view.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Changing-Faces-Jesus-Compass/dp/0142196029/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333389133&sr=1-6
Vermes is a former priest converted to Judaism http://www.amazon.com/The-Changing-Faces-Jesus-Compass/dp/0142196029/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333389133&sr=1-6
And any of the many books by Bart Ehrman. Misquoting Jesus is surely the flashiest book title in decades.
Pulling this out as it was too nested.
Bob, sometimes supposed Jewish customs are inferred only from the text of the Bible. We had some discussion of this in last Sunday’s thread. Now when Christians do the inferring they do so in ways that confirm the desired reading of the older text. If this is the sort of ‘learning about ancient Judaism’ you engage in then you have proven my point. I’m not in your SS class so i don’t know, and I am no expert on actual Jewish tradition so i can’t debate it. I do know, from real experts, it happens a lot.
I can cite two examples. In the era of Jesus the Jewish messiah was conceived of as conqueror. The idea that a humble poor preacher on a donkey would arouse messianic fervor is implausible. See Sanders for more.
Imagine I wrote “Krugman was routed in debate by an Autrian economist, an economist with poor sound quality.” and imagine a historian, centuries later, thinking I mean Kruggers was routed by a duo, not a solo act. Well that’s waht matthew seems to have done in his reading of the earlier (Jewish) work. So Christians now repeat his error, distorting the Jewish source, for exegetical purposes.
Exegesis brings forth buttressing stories and customs.
Population of Jerusalem,
“No one believes the largest of these figures,” writes E. P. Sanders in Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE – 66 CE (p. 126). Using various means, Sanders estimates the actual number of attendees to be 300,000 to 500,000.
@Xon
“If we’re arguing about the battle of Tripoli, and I think books X Y and Z are the best sources that tell about it, I am under no obligation to accept this other book A just because you think it’s just as good as the others. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Make your case.”
First of all, you’re misconstruing the Christian claim. The claim is not that some texts are better merely than others. The claim is that some texts are the inspired word of god and others aren’t.
You’re also reversing the burden of proof. If Christians want to claim the complete, total, and perfect accuracy of certain gospels, and then say, “But these other gospels shouldn’t be paid attention to”, they are the ones who bear the burden of demonstrating why that is so.
“Prove that the Gospel of Thomas tells us something about Jesus that Christians have to take seriously and modify their faith on that basis.”
The logical implication of claiming that Thomas was not the inspired word of god is that there is a method for determining what is inspired and what is not. If there is such a method, Christians bear the burden of revealing and defending it. On the other hand, if there is no such method, there is no guarantee that Christians have chosen the right gospels, or that any of the gospels are the inspired word of god.
“Pointing out that the Gospel of Thomas exists proves nothing.”
To the extent that Thomas contradicts the other gospels (and Christian dogma in general), it constitutes an argument against their veracity, necessitating a reasoned rebuttal.
“Christians do not read the canonical gospels, like what they hear, and then say, “those are the true scriptures!” No, they already “receive” the canonical scriptures as the true ones, and then they see themselves as obligated to believe what they say, *including when they say something that might be difficult*.”
Right, and non-theists point out that this is irrational.
“Pointing out that the Gospel of Thomas exists proves nothing.”
Actually it proves quite a lot. It proves there are more sources than most believers consult. There are implications.
It proves that there were early believers whose views differed from the early believers who used Matthew. Since all we have is such records left by early faith groups this raises a question about reliability. At some point believers will argue that Thomas was *corrupted* or *faked*. But then the question arises, why not Matthew?
It proves that we really know very little about the first decades of the faith, which counsels caution about the kind of argument RPM puts forward — like the argument from martyrs.
It proves that you should take seriously the hints of gnosticism in other gospels which are hard to account for otherwise. it proves things are not as simple as some pretend they are.
Here’s an interesting example of how a text can be corrupted with no malice. Say my bunch 1900 years ago believes Jesus is the love-child of god. We really believe that. And we come across a story of Jesus as follows, and it contains this bit.
“I am come to tell you of the comming of the Kingdom of god. After my death the son of god will arise.”
Now this sentence does not assert Jesus is the sone of god. It might have come from a source that did not see him as the son of god. But when I recall and retell, or rewrite, I might just subtly transform it based on my understanding of the source, conditioned by my belief. The result might be “I am come to tell you of the coming of the Kingdom of god. After my death I the son of god will arise” or “I am come to tell you of the coming of the Kingdom of god. After my death I will arise.”
As far as I am concerned, and as far as my ‘proof readers’ are concerned I haven’t changed anything.
One last bit on ‘fakery’. It is usually *Christians* who call noncanonicals fake. The preferred word is ‘ spurious’, followed by ‘heretical’. Look at what Irenaeus had to say about some of them.
I on the contrary maintain that all such sources are shaped by the beliefs of the faith communities whose teaching materials they were. This is not ‘fakery’ in the same sense. It is malleability. And it applies to all the source books we have, including the four canonical gospels, Acts, etc.
There do seem to be some actual fakes in the NT too: pseudo-Pauline letters for example. But my point is not about red-handed fraud like this, or changes made in 1850.
this comment is an attempt to close the italics tag.
Sorry about that. Xon thought I was getting emotional because I used CAPS, so I tried to figure out how to use html tags to make italics instead…
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Supernatural
Oh man why would the coder put this in?
[/i]
@Bob
“So why would those writers make Jesus do things that would disturb the biases of potential converts to the cause? It would be like me making up stories of Murray Rothbard being a vegan, in an attempt to win over Republican conservatives to libertarianism.”
I like the way you’re thinking here, and you make an interesting point. However, if you consistently apply this lens in evaluating the NT, you will find that it does not fair very well. In fact, the idea of a pacifist messiah simply does not make sense in the historical context.
First century Judeans were some of the most militant, zealous, and xenophobic people in history, and they were being occupied by an idol-worshiping, polytheistic, uncircumcised, foreign regime. The idea of a multiculturalist pacifist messiah emerging and being taken seriously during this period is extremely odd, on its face. A warrior messiah was expected to lead the Jews to military victory against Rome.
From ‘War of the Jews’:
…the Jews hoped that all of their nation, which were beyond Euphrates, would have raised an insurrection with them.
From the Damascus Document:
…those who remain will be offered up to the sword, when the Messiah of Aaron and Israel comes… given up to the sword of vengeance, the avenger of the Covenant…
From the Targum:
How lovely is the king Messiah, who is to rise from the house of Judah. He girds his loins and goes out to wage war on those who hate him, killing kings and rulers . . . and reddening the mountains with the blood of their slain. With his garments dipped in blood, he is like one who treads grapes in the wine press.
Anonymouse wrote:
I like the way you’re thinking here, and you make an interesting point. However, if you consistently apply this lens in evaluating the NT, you will find that it does not fair very well. In fact, the idea of a pacifist messiah simply does not make sense in the historical context.
Right, so it continues to confirm that line of thinking (which you said you liked!). If there had been some guy with some neat sayings, and then his followers (sometime between 100 and 500 AD, let’s say) wanted to dress up his words with some fanciful tales of miracles and any other wise sayings that had occurred to them, then they wouldn’t have made him the kind of guy the gospel Jesus is, right?
Now if you’re merely saying that the events reported on Palm Sunday are implausible, OK I understand your argument. But then again, Jesus was going around healing people and even raising a few from the dead. And the gospels themselves acknowledge the controversy, with people saying (e.g.) that the Messiah was supposed to come from Bethlehem, not Nazareth.
So the actual text isn’t very “clean,” whereas if it were just a big forgery after the fact, you’d think they would have made it cleaner.
Obviously I’m not here “proving” the gospels, I’m just showing that this line of thought is consistent with, and in fact reinforced by, your points that the Jews were expected a revolutionary military commander, not a pacifist talking about a “kingdom” not of this world.
“then they wouldn’t have made him the kind of guy the gospel Jesus is, right?”
What kind of guy is that though Bob? He changes over time and in different gospels. In Mark he’s an apocalyptic prophet preaching ‘repent the end is nigh.’ In Luke he’s a bit different. In John he’s a lot different. In Thomas he’s different still. I haven’t mentioned Q, as it’s inferential, but the inferences are pretty good.
It’s also just not true people won’t conjure up fables about such figures. Take the later, and differing, geneaologies back to Adam. Crappy for persuading the Roman elite I expect, but useful for persuading those who demand a link to the house of David messianic prophecies. And they cannot both be correct.
What all this suggests is fables that mutate over time, not whole cloth fabrications later.
“Right, so it continues to confirm that line of thinking (which you said you liked!).”
I didn’t say I agreed with your conclusions, but I like that you’re considering the historical context.
“If there had been some guy with some neat sayings, and then his followers (sometime between 100 and 500 AD, let’s say) wanted to dress up his words with some fanciful tales of miracles and any other wise sayings that had occurred to them, then they wouldn’t have made him the kind of guy the gospel Jesus is, right?”
I haven’t acknowledged that there was a guy with some neat sayings. My point is that the messiah the Jews of the time were expecting and the messiah that would have appealed to them was a warrior king to lead them to military victory against Rome.
The idea that the NT records the oral traditions of a cult of Judean pacifists is highly suspect. It’s much more likely that the NT was made up in whole cloth than that a bunch of Jewish fundamentalists living under foreign occupation were inspired enough by the story of an executed pacifist to abandon fundamental tenets of their faith and hundreds of years of history rebelling against tyrannical gentiles.
“So the actual text isn’t very ‘clean,’ whereas if it were just a big forgery after the fact, you’d think they would have made it cleaner.”
Well, the fact of the matter is that I know, for a fact, that it was, in fact, a big forgery after the fact.
“Obviously I’m not here ‘proving’ the gospels, I’m just showing that this line of thought is consistent with, and in fact reinforced by, your points that the Jews were expected a revolutionary military commander, not a pacifist talking about a ‘kingdom’ not of this world.”
Your argument is that the NT authors were sincere because their story flies in the face of what we know about first century Judea. My argument is that a pacifist-worshiping cult would have never caught on in Judea, so such a cult is a highly unlikely source for the NT. It’s more likely that non-Judean Greek-speakers simply made it up.
“I haven’t acknowledged that there was a guy with some neat sayings. My point is that the messiah the Jews of the time were expecting and the messiah that would have appealed to them was a warrior king to lead them to military victory against Rome.”
I am really having trouble grasping this as an objection to the historicity of the canonical gospels. The gospels do indeed show the disciples struggling with this issue of expectation. Hell, that’s likely what caused Judas to go wrong (as I brought up in the thread from two weeks ago).
The Jews in general wanted a warrior king, and they tried on a number of occasions to read Jesus that way, as did his disciples. (see the whole “get behind me, satan” episode between Jesus and Peter, which happens because Peter tells Jesus to stop talking nonsense about this “going to Jerusalem to die” stuff.) They argue about who will be enthroned with him when he comes into his power. He tells them they don’t know what they’re talking about.
He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, just as David had done. The people did not miss this. He had been performing for three years in the region (Judea and Galilee), and at this point his reputation preceded him.
Where are the puzzles here? It’s all quite interesting, and there are really several ways to reconstruct the events that all fit with the Gospels. I don’t see any deep problems, though.
“The Jews in general wanted a warrior king, and they tried on a number of occasions to read Jesus that way, as did his disciples.”
Exactly. So, the idea of a first century Judean cult worshiping a non-warrior non-king should raise some red flags. The claim that Judeans who had no first-hand knowledge of the miracles would be inspired by the story of an executed pacifist is extremely dubious.
The implication is that there may have never been an original Jesus-worshiping cult. The stories were more likely composed by Hellenistic non-Judean Greek-speakers.
“My argument is that a pacifist-worshiping cult would have never caught on in Judea, so such a cult is a highly unlikely source for the NT.”
1. It “caught on” in that people liked being fed by big showy miracles. Then Jesus would give “real talk” teachings and most people would abandon him. (See John for this dynamic repeating itself a few times.)
2. When it wasn’t happy miracle time, it “caught on” amongst only a small band of followers.
3. Even after the resurrection, those followers made relatively small inroads into the Jewish culture, as seen in Acts. Eventually, the message was indeed taken out to the other regions of the empire, and found more success there over time.
What’s the problem here?
“1. It ‘caught on’ in that people liked being fed by big showy miracles. Then Jesus would give ‘real talk’ teachings and most people would abandon him. (See John for this dynamic repeating itself a few times.)”
Exactly. So what sustained the cult after Jesus retired? Stories of a guy giving people some fish and then getting executed? It’s unlikely that first century Judeans would have been receptive to such a figure, which casts the existence of a Jesus-cult and its oral tradition into doubt.
“2. When it wasn’t happy miracle time, it ‘caught on’ amongst only a small band of followers.”
Right, which again casts doubt on the existence of a Jesus-cult and an oral tradition, making it more likely that the gospels are the actual origin of Christianity, not the record of an already-existing religion.
“What’s the problem here?”
The problem is simply that the Jesus story doesn’t fit into the zeitgeist of the times, which is yet more evidence that it was made up after the fact by Hellenistic non-Judean Greek-speakers.
Anonymouse and Ken B., you two are coming at this from completely different angles and it’s too difficult for me to keep it straight. You two fight it out and let us know who wins…
(Specifically, I think Ken B. admits there was a Jesus and that his followers after the fact made up different stories based on their recollections, and then over time those things grew into tall tales. At this point, we have no way of reliably using those documents as evidence. Anonymouse, if I understand him, doesn’t even think there was a guy Jesus who existed, and thinks the gospel accounts are 100% fiction.)
Let me just give one final parting statement: Two weeks ago in my church the head pastor was talking about his trip to Israel, that he makes every year taking people from our church. One of the slides he put up was some weathered rock that had “–TIUS PVLATE” [sic] or something like that at the top, and then some other stuff below in a language I couldn’t read. He was telling us that this was one of the few (only?) non-gospel pieces of evidence that an official named Pontius Pilate had presided in that area etc. etc.
So that event, from two weeks ago in my church, contradicts everything Ken B. is here saying about the Christian approach to these types of things. Note, I’m not saying everything Ken B. is saying here is wrong; I’m saying his characterization of the Christian attitude toward history, evidence, etc. is totally wrong. The actual Christians I know–who have spent decades studying the Bible, historical evidence from atheists, etc.–make very nuanced statements about what we can say, and with what reliability, and what types of outside confirmation or lack thereof exists.
Which is why, Ken B., I have no reason to trust you at all on your other assertions. Since I know you are completely wrong in your description of what motivates my fellow believers, I don’t trust your neutral assessment on other issues. For me, it’s very much like reading Krugman talking about, say, the rates of government spending growth versus GDP growth in Europe over the last 3 years. I don’t have at my fingertips the means to say exactly what Krugman is doing wrong, and I’m not accusing him of outright lying, but I don’t trust his presentation AT ALL, based on the things he has asserted where I personally know what is going on.
So, same with your handling of Christianity, Ken B. You clearly have studied a lot of stuff that I don’t know about, but I don’t trust you at all because of your mocking attitude and the several places where you are asserting things about Christians that I personally know are false.
Bob, to be fair, we have no idea what Christians believe. They could believe literally anything. That’s kind of our point.
Joe wrote: Bob, to be fair, we have no idea what Christians believe.
OK Joe, I think you personally have probably been good on this point. But if Ken B. agrees with you on this, he should refrain from writing sentences starting with, “The Christian believes…” Right?
I don’t recall writing those words. Got a citation? However when I say “Christians believe” I mean it in the same way one says “Keynesians believe” or “Austrians believe”: it’s a statement about a strong tendency not an invariable rule.
Ken B I think you should just make a disclaimer that you admit that Christians aren’t a homogeneous group and that the top 0.01% of them cannot be dismissed as easily as the bottom 90% who haven’t read the bible at all.
RPM:
Basically correct but too strong. I think we can draw inferences.
Most of those inferences in fact pertain to the beliefs of the communities not to the historical record. Not all.
I think for example we can be pretty sure there was a Jesus, he was a Jew, he preached some stuff, he was crucified.
I do think that, to use an analogy, very fine photographic details cannot be trusted. But much Christian dogma relies on just that.
I also think contradictions must be reconciled and the basic nature of the documents acknowledged.
‘Drift’ and revision are the most plausible explanations of contradictions.
I also think there is real uncertainty about the early years of the faith.
Once you learn about the gnostics then a lot of odd stuff in mark and John for instance suddenly looks to make sense in gnostic terms.
The secrecy in Mark. It’s really weird, unless you see it gnostically.
I don’t argue this means the gnostics are right, or the faith is bogus.
I do argue it means one should be less confident in one’s assertions about what Jesus really said and taught.
“Which is why, Ken B., I have no reason to trust you at all on your other assertions.”
If you check back I explicitly said “Don’t trust me on this” because every single example and claim I have made is easily verifiable. The differing geneaologies for instance.
But of course what you are really saying is (and I confess this is tendentious) “I have found my pretext for ignoring your arguments.”
I am allowed perhaps my own distrust?
“The actual Christians I know–who have spent decades studying the Bible, historical evidence from atheists, etc.–make very nuanced statements about what we can say, and with what reliability, and what types of outside confirmation or lack thereof exists.”
Well of course by citing sources I have no access to (and I have repeatedly cited only books and authors you can get at) I can’t say much about the folks you know.
I’m sure they are sincere; the believers I talk to are sincere.
But my guess is that their perceptions and judgments are not impartial, are informed by faith, and are attempts to deepen their faith and understanding not to see if it holds up to scientific rigor.
I distrust your confident characterization in short, and your ability to judge.
Let’s talk your Palm Sunday story.
In Matthew Jesus rides on two beasts. In Luke just one. Please don’t trust me on this. Look it up.
Now I think things like that matters if you want to draw inferences from fine details.
More interesting is to ponder why this discrepancy? And this weird picture of a man awkwardly on two beasts rahter than comfortably on one.
A good theory — and it’s not my creation I promise, trust me — is that in the Matthew tradition there is a great concern with showing Jesus fulfilled some prophecy from the OT.
And there is a passage in 1 Kings which can be read (or misread) as involving two beasts.
[Insert technical stuff about greek versions of Kings here. all that matters is that matthew would have read that there were two beasts.]
The simplest explanation overall is that the story was enhanced by the Matthew community before redaction and that Luke preserves an earlier (and therefore arguably more reliable) account.
Note that this argument actually supports the historicity of the arrival on Palm Sunday.
What it undercuts is every case in Matthew where prophecy is fulfilled and hence a certain OT-heavy notion of who Jesus really was.
Was that sort of thing discussed last Sunday? Is this indeed a new argument to you?
In my experience Christians who discuss this don’t suddenly question their belief in prophecy, they look for jerry-rigged ways to reconcile.
Perhaps your experience varies, but perhaps your bunch is unusual.
“Anonymouse and Ken B., you two are coming at this from completely different angles”
Well, his angle is that there was a cult that made some stuff up, and my angle is that the cult itself was made up. So, I don’t think we’re coming at this from completely different angles. I just occupy a more extreme position on the spectrum.
“…and it’s too difficult for me to keep it straight.”
Ah…
“You two fight it out and let us know who wins…”
Hm… I can empathize with your position, although I’m not sure that your proposal makes sense. You write every Sunday about the truth of Jesus, his miracles, and followers, etc. Ken B questions the truth of the miracles, and I question the truth of the whole thing. I don’t think logic necessitates that Ken B and I be equally skeptical about everything, but I can see how things could get confusing.
“Anonymouse, if I understand him, doesn’t even think there was a guy Jesus who existed, and thinks the gospel accounts are 100% fiction.”
They are fictional histories written by Hellenistic non-Judeans who could read and write in Greek.
Yeah, Anonymouse takes an extreme (but arguable) position. Mine is actually pretty mainstream (LIES! cries Bob in the background) I am for instance less extreme than The Jesus Seminar. The most interesting thing is that Bob and many Christians seem not to know about this mainstream. There’s a certin incuriosity.
I don’t just question the miracles though Anon. I question the entire scriptural basis for most theology, and the assumed nature of Jesus as I indicated earlier today.
If I had to guess I’d say Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who preached some stuff we know and also with a lot of odd ideas we have only a glimmer of, stories of whom have been subject to legendary accretions and editing to bolster changing theological beliefs of the communities through which different strains of the faith passed.
@Xon
I agree that Thomas could provide corroborating evidence for what is already in the canonical books, but I disagree that Thomas could ever be used to disprove the canonical texts.
Mary says that Sally hit her and Sally says that Mary hit her. You’re argument is that Sally could never prove Mary wrong, but you’re not acknowledging what should be completely obvious: Sally’s claim conflicts with Mary’s claim, necessitating a rational procedure for separating truth from fiction.
The atheist thesis is in trouble here, as it amounts to the arbitrary claim that Christians ought to listen to a certain ancient text instead of the ones they already listen to.
No one has made such a claim. I think our argument is more sophisticated than you realize. We point out the controversy and ask what means were used to resolve it. Failure to produce any means implies that the canonical gospels were arbitrarily chosen.
…they believe that God inspired the writing of those particular books. They do not believe that God inspired the writing of any of the other alleged gospels.
Exactly, but the question is, why? My intuition tells me that you can’t or would prefer not to answer that question.
” Sally’s claim conflicts with Mary’s claim, necessitating a rational procedure for separating truth from fiction”
Sure. Acknowledged several times now. The early church had a number of alleged “gospels’ floating around by the third century, and had to come up with a way to figure out which was which. They did so. If you want to question their actual decision, that’s one thing. But there has been a lot of cheap skepticism in this thread, i.e., “Woah, how can you believe one gospel and not the other?” If you are simply asking for the rationale for accepting one and rejecting another, I’ve already discussed this. Nobody is missing anything here. You still aren’t happy, but I don’t know what to do for you.
“No one has made such a claim. I think our argument is more sophisticated than you realize. We point out the controversy and ask what means were used to resolve it. Failure to produce any means implies that the canonical gospels were arbitrarily chosen.”
Again, they *did* come up with a means for resolving it. The early church decided that only “apostolic” books truly belonged in the canon. This usually gets summed up by historical scholars as four separate criteria, all of which had to be in place for a book to be apostolic and allowed in the canon. I used a quick-and-dirty two-point summation earlier. Basically, the book had to actually be written by an apostle, and it also had to have been in consistent use in the churches from the time of the apostles. (It also had to be consistent with the received matters of the faith already handed down, such as the OT, established worship practices in the early church, etc.)
Those are the criteria. All quite reasonable. This was a real historical institution, trying to sort out a real issue. Using these criteria, they did so. It was not arbitrary.
Of course, they may have gotten something wrong on the facts. they may have made a Type I or Type II error, by letting a book in that wasn’t actually apostolic, or by keeping a book out that actually was. But then go ahead, by all means, and demonstrate that with an argument.
The issue is, I suspect, that when you actually do try to demonstrate it with an argument, it will become very obvious very quickly how….er…shaky any attempt to disprove Christianity is going to be though that avenue. Sure, some scholars say yada yada, but others respond with blah blah. This ancient text says this, which questions the validity of that, but then we also have some reasons to question that ancient text you just brought up.
In the end, the different camps will go to their own presuppositional corner, not convincing the other side but still convinced that their own side is right. And then the atheists will probably do the sensible thing, which is to step back and go after the very idea of God’s existence with philosophical arguments, rather than nitpicking the details of Scripture.
“If you want to question their actual decision, that’s one thing.”
I have questioned their decision, as you presented it in this thread.
“But there has been a lot of cheap skepticism in this thread, i.e., ‘Woah, how can you believe one gospel and not the other?’”
I have never made such a claim. I asked, “If you believe one, why not believe them all?” That was a legitimate question (request for information), not a claim.
“If you are simply asking for the rationale for accepting one and rejecting another, I’ve already discussed this. Nobody is missing anything here. You still aren’t happy, but I don’t know what to do for you.”
For starters, you could admit that I’m right not to accept their rational.
“Basically, the book had to actually be written by an apostle”
How would they have known that?
“it also had to have been in consistent use in the churches from the time of the apostles.”
How would they have known that?
“It also had to be consistent with the received matters of the faith already handed down, such as the OT, established worship practices in the early church, etc.”
So if the religion evolved to conflict with the original teachings, would the original teachings have been discarded at this point?
“Of course, they may have gotten something wrong on the facts.”
Yes.
“they may have made a Type I or Type II error”
Yes.
“But then go ahead, by all means, and demonstrate that with an argument.”
I have already pointed out where I disagree with their methodology. But by merely acknowledging the possibility of error, it starts to become apparent how much would have had to go right for the received stories to be true.
This is not the Miracle of the Sun, here. We’re dealing with something much murkier, shrouded in mist, hidden under a veil of uncertainty, and concealed behind a screen of doubt.
Xon: I will get to Bob’s remarks. let me answer you first. I don’t argue Thomas et al prove Christianity is wrong. My concern has been refuting Bob’s claim that one can build a respectable credible persuasive case for the truth of the faith. I won’t recap my arguments here, just the conclusion. he ends up relying on FAITH. I actually think you agree with me here : “And, again, we are talking about matters of revelation here.”
Yes, exactly my point. Bob has revelation. he presumably also has some emotional response that converted him. That’s ALL he has.
@Xon
“Or, since God exists, He guides earthly matters, including church politics, in a way that produces an end product that is reliable.”
Did god create all the myriad forms of Christianity?
“You are pitting ‘church politics’ against ‘it’s inspired by God,’ as though they are mutually exclusive. But they are plainly not.”
I didn’t claim that, and I wish I didn’t have to explain to you that I didn’t claim that. There’s a more sophisticated interpretation you could have gotten out of what I wrote.
“1. The men who wrote the Bible, or the men in the church who approved the books of the Bible, had their own agendas going on.
2. ?
3. Atheism!
OR
3. The Bible was not actually inspired by God after all!”
I think one of the necessary preconditions of a debate is the ability to understand what the other person is saying, and you clearly do not understand what I’m saying. I’m finding it quite difficult to debate you, because I constantly have to correct your mischaracterization of my arguments.
“Now, you can argue that the early Church got this stuff wrong on the facts, sure. Go ahead, name that tune. Why do you believe that”
I’m saying it’s possible. I’m also saying that if one gospel can be bogus, then any or all of them could be.
From Ehrman’s latest book, just published 2 weeks ago
“But as a historian I think evidence matters. And the past matters. And for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it quite plain: Jesus did exist. He may not have been the Jesus that your mother believes in or the Jesus of the stained-glass window or the Jesus of your least favorite televangelist or the Jesus proclaimed by the Vatican, the Southern Baptist Convention, the local megachurch, or the California Gnostic. But he did exist, and we can say a few things, with relative certainty, …”
Ehrman, Bart D.. Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (Kindle Locations 112-115). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
The book is real Bob — trust me!
What are the main pieces of evidence he cites besides the NT and Josephus?
@Anon: I have not read the book yet. I can guess based on Ehrman’s earlier book on JC.
1) the weakness of the profferred negative arguments
2) the multiple attestation implied by the various gospels, not all canonical
3) Paul’s letters
4) Occam
5) Plethora of communities all arising in a short time period
6) Bob’s friends, who seem to be reliable authorities
I find all of these but #6 convincing myself.
When I’m done I might post a note on some Sunday thread.
Right now I am re-reading Lost Christianities which I read 8 or so years ago. It’s even grimmer for Bob than I remembered.
BTW I think that the non-canonical gospels will often get a more sympathetic reading from unbelievers like me or tansey than believers (like Bob). We try to grapple with the weird ideas and understand what could lead to such world views and fears without an overlay of rejection/outrage/disgust. The usual impartial-judge stuff.
Let’s say that there’s a “real christianity”, but that dozens of attempts have been made to introduce fake documents, facts, and traditions into the cannon throughout history for thousands of years.
What are the odds that the mainstream would end up with “real christianity”?
And don’t say it can’t happen. Mormons man. White Jesus. Come on.
1) the weakness of the profferred negative arguments
He probably ignores the strongest arguments, though.
2) the multiple attestation implied by the various gospels, not all canonical
Religious propaganda.
3) Paul’s letters
Religious propaganda.
4) Occam
Ignoring the most important evidence may provide the illusion that Occam is on his side.
5) Plethora of communities all arising in a short time period
When and where did they arise?
‘But the most basic idea behind their approach is still widely shared, namely, that before the Gospels came to be written, and before the sources that lie behind the Gospels were themselves produced, oral traditions about Jesus circulated, and as the stories about Jesus were told and retold, they changed their form and some stories came to be made up… This appears to be true of all of our sources for the historical Jesus. They are all based on oral traditions, and this has significant implications …’
Ehrman, Bart D. (2012-03-20). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (Kindle Locations 1300-1304). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Which I believe is what I characterized as the mainstream position, and mine.
NO NO NO MAN THE ANSWER IS VERY SIMPLE, 2 COMPLETELY DIFFERENT JEWISH COMMUNITIES ARE BEING REFERENCED HERE !
do you know how when you go to the center of some towns you have the courthouse, the bail bondsmen, the attorneys offices …. an entire eco system ! those are the guys screaming for blood.
and the hosha na’s were coming from the common people who loved Him.
Happy Easter. He is Risen !