One of my students recently asked me:
“How do we know any of this is true? You know, without just relying on the Bible?”That is a good question – and a common one. It is influenced by a form of skepticism which is common among modern agnostics. This form of skepticism treats the Bible as a single “religious text” and then dismisses it as having no evidentiary value.
If you have ever heard someone say…
“Can you show me any of this stuff from actual historical sources? Can you give me some source other than your holy book?”… you have encountered this form of skepticism.
Today I want to take a look at that attitude. Is it reasonable? And how should we use the Bible when talking to skeptics?
All or Nothing?
The first thing I would want to do is point out an erroneous feature in the way the situation is being framed. The skeptical person is commonly approaches the Bible with a false dichotomy. Namely, a person of faith can treat it as the inerrant word of God, but to all others it is a useless collection of myths and fables.
So the first thing I would point out is that when approaching the New Testament without religious faith, you are not automatically left with a collection of fables and myths. Rather, you are left with a collection of Greek documents which describe the life, ministry, and implications of a certain Jesus of Nazareth.
From there you have to ask:
- Who were the authors of these documents?
- When were they written?
- What were these authors intending to do?
The Authors:
There are a few things I would point out regarding the authorship of the Gospels.
Witness Marks:
By inspection of the text alone, one can conclude these were written by men who were familiar with the geography, politics, people, and culture of first-century Palestine. This alone should the suggest authors who were close to the events of Jesus.
The Gospels are also filled with little details you would expect from eye-witness testimony. For instance, why did Mark decide provide the name of the blind beggar Bartimaeus? Why did he include the names of the sons of Simon of Cyrene? Why mention such useless details? The simplest answer is because Mark was tying the stories to real people whom the original audiences would have known.
(One could make similar observations about the other Gospels as well.)
In addition, the choices of writing under the names of Mark, Luke, and Matthew would seem to be poor choices for a forger. It makes sense to steal John’s identity, but Mark and Luke were only friends of the Apostles. Matthew was an apostle, by not the most important one.
So why would the texts become associated with those men? Again, the simplest answer is because those are simply the guys who wrote them.
Early Attestation:
The next question should be:
“What does recorded history say regarding the authorship of these Gospels? And is there any reason to doubt it?”Well, they have always been regarded as the work of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The earliest witness to the Apostolic authorship comes from a man named Papias of Hierapolis. He wrote the following regarding the Gospels of Matthew and Mark:
"Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. […] Matthew compiled the sayings of the Lord in the Aramaic language, and everyone translated them as well as he could." – Fragment 6 (90-120AD)Irenaeus of Lyon (a bishop stationed in France in the year 180AD) also acknowledged all four Gospels and their genuine authorship in his work “Against Heresies.” [Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 11, Section 8]. One might complain that Irenaeus was too far removed from the events to know. To which I would ask, “Do you know who wrote the Declaration of Independence?”
The historical witnesses recall that these texts are the written testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – written in their own hand or through a secretary. So unless someone can provide a compelling reason to suspect this is not the case, the responsible thing to do is side with the universal historical witness.
Universal Acceptance:
Here is the last thing I’d point out…
It is normal to imagine the New Testament as the source of the Christian faith. We think of it as “The Book From Which Christianity Arose.” But this is not the case. The Christian faith had been spreading for years before the Gospels were even composed.
Rather, the true origin of the Christian faith was the preaching of the Apostles. They went out from Jerusalem to the far corners of the world to spread the Gospel through their testimony.
What does this have to do with the authenticity of the Gospels? The fact that these books were universally accepted in the Christian world is evidence to their authenticity. It means every local church – from Carthage and Antioch to Jerusalem and Rome - read them and concluded, “Yep, this is what we heard from the Apostles.”
Dating:
Another thing you will commonly hear is that the Gospels were written long, long after the events of Jesus’ ministry. Someone will say:
How could these people have accurately remembered the details of what they saw? Wouldn’t the stories have grown to epic proportion by the time they were written down?
I like to respond with a simple argument for the early dating of the Gospels.
The Missing Ending of Acts:
This argument starts by examining the book of Acts. This book is Saint Luke’s attempt to present an account of the ministry of Peter and Paul. Chapters 1 through 12 follow the former. Chapters 13-28 follow the latter.
The narrative of Acts finishes anticlimactically with Paul arriving in Rome and beginning his ministry there. We know from history that Paul would eventually have gone to trial, probably had an audience with the emperor, and was eventually beheaded by a Roman executioner. This would have served as the climax of the story … and yet it is absent.
What does this tell us? If Acts was written after the death of Paul, we would expect his martyrdom to be in the text. Thus, their absence means the book was written and completed before these events transpired. That is, before 67AD. This places the writing of Acts within 34 years of the crucifixion of Jesus.
But there’s more.
The Prequel:
The book of Acts presents itself as the sequel to the Gospel of Luke. It opens with:
"In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.” - Acts 1:1-2This places the writing of Luke’s Gospel before the writing of Acts. (My personal guess is that it occurred while Luke was still in the Holy Land with Paul).
Source Material:
We can take one last step. There is good evidence that Luke copied off at least one other Gospel (Mark or Matthew). This would place the writing of Mark or Matthew (or both) before Luke.
Here’s the bottom line: The Gospels do not represent the attempts of senile men at recalling events from long, long ago. They are much more like a World War II veteran sitting down for an interview in 1976 to discuss what he saw on the German front lines.
Not an unreasonable task.
Genre and Intent
The last question is:
What were these guys trying to do?This question can be taken in two directions.
Writing Genre:
First, were they trying to write elaborate works of fiction? Or mythological heroic epics? Or maybe a completely spiritual allegory on their experiences with Jesus?
No, no, and no.
Luke told us at the beginning of his Gospel what sort of book he was writing. He was attempting to write a historical biography based on eye-witness testimony and prior written accounts. He says:
"Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed." - Luke 1:1-4Likewise, Saint John wanted to drive home to his readers that he was delivering his own truthful eyewitness testimony. He said the following near the end of his Gospel:
"An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may come to believe." - John 19:35The upshot is that these men were not trying to write a “Religious Text” in the manner meant by a skeptic. They were trying to say, “Here is what we saw.”
Honesty:
But now a person might say:
“Yours isn’t the only text written this way. Are you going to be completely credulous about their testimony? What about the texts of other religions?”True enough. The Apostles could have been a conspiracy. They could have been writing with the intent of deceiving. So now it comes down to the character of these men.
If they – say – immediately began consolidating political power, raising armies, and accumulating wealth… you might suspect they made it up for worldly gain. Or perhaps they started using their religious influence to grow a collection of young wives. Again, you might suspect ulterior motivations.
But this is not what you see when you look at the Apostles or Gospel writers. Matthew was a wealthy tax collector. Luke was a doctor. John had connections to Jewish high society. Paul was a distinguished legal scholar. Peter had a family fishing business. Yet they gave it all up for a life of persecution, poverty, celibacy, and martyrdom. This is not the behavior of liars and conmen.
The Word of Honest Men:
Earlier on I mentioned that a “Religious Text” is treated by skeptics as a document with no evidentiary value for people who don’t believe in its divine inspiration. Thus, the Bible is immediately ruled out as a historical witness and we receive the corresponding demand for evidence from “actual” historical sources.
But there is a middle ground between inerrant truth and useless mythology. What if we started by treating the Gospels as the concurring testimony of honest men? Not necessarily inspired, but an attempt by some guys to describe the extraordinary things they saw?
Such a thing cannot be dismissed so quickly. Now it has to be treated the same way we treat all honest testimony.
As evidence.
Two of the biggest assumptions that many Christians make regarding the truth claims of Christianity is that, one, eyewitnesses wrote the four gospels. The problem is, however, that the majority of scholars today do not believe this is true. The second big assumption many Christians make is that it would have been impossible for whoever wrote these four books to have invented details in their books, especially in regards to the Empty Tomb and the Resurrection appearances, due to the fact that eyewitnesses to these events would have still been alive when the gospels were written and distributed.
ReplyDeleteBut consider this, dear Reader: Most scholars date the writing of the first gospel, Mark, as circa 70 AD. Who of the eyewitnesses to the death of Jesus and the alleged events after his death were still alive in 70 AD? That is four decades after Jesus' death. During that time period, tens of thousands of people living in Palestine were killed in the Jewish-Roman wars of the mid and late 60's, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem.
How do we know that any eyewitness to the death of Jesus in circa 30 AD was still alive when the first gospel was written and distributed in circa 70 AD? How do we know that any eyewitness to the death of Jesus ever had the opportunity to read the Gospel of Mark and proof read it for accuracy?
I challenge Christians to list the name of even ONE eyewitness to the death of Jesus who was still alive in 70 AD along with the evidence to support your claim.
If you can't list any names, dear Christian, how can you be sure that details such as the Empty Tomb, the detailed resurrection appearances, and the Ascension ever really occurred? How can you be sure that these details were not simply theological hyperbole...or...the exaggerations and embellishments of superstitious, first century, mostly uneducated people, who had retold these stories thousands of times, between thousands of people, from one language to another, from one country to another, over a period of many decades?
To make a long story short - and in place of a longer discussion - I do not believe you have actually read the content of this post.
DeleteAlso... the Apostle John. He is commonly believed to have died around the turn of the first century.
The belief that the Apostle John lived to the end of the first century is based on nothing more than hearsay and catholic tradition. Could you provide a statement of anyone who lived in the first century who claims he met the apostle John?
DeleteAlmost the entirety of ancient history is built on some form of hearsay and tradition. Ruling that out leaves nothing but archaeology.
DeleteEven if I did the legwork to show what sources exist for the death of John - or him knowing people like Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp - you could dismiss those as hearsay and tradition too. And that is far too much effort to spend on a person who I don't think actually read my post.
Heck, I'm not certain if I could prove the date of my own birth under such criteria.
Even then, we'd be very far down a rabbit trail which I don't think is necessary. Successfully answering the "telephone game" argument doesn't require the things you have asked for.
Steven,
DeleteNeither you nor I are New Testament scholars. We are both "laymen"---novices. I suggest we ask the experts their opinion on these questions, not try to argue our individual (biased) opinions.
So here is the question: do the MAJORITY of NT scholars believe that it is a probable historical fact that John the Apostle lived to the end of the first century and that Polycarp, and/or Papias, and/or Ignatius were his disciples? Or, does the majority of NT scholars believe that it is impossible to know?
I'm not asking if ANY NT scholar believes these things are true because you can find a NT scholar to support practically any position. The question is, what do the MAJORITY of scholars believe.
Gary
I have not conducted this survey. But I have never, ever heard anyone doubt the late death of John. If you are familiar with a body of literature showing that John died prior to 70AD, I'd be interested in it. Until then, I'm going to stick with the historical narrative which seems to be accepted by everyone.
DeleteAnd even if I had the data on what the "majority of NT scholars" believe about anything... I guarantee you their knowledge of history is built on surviving examples of written testimony. A medium which you have already said you don't accept.
Even still, I'll repeat that arguing about the late date of John's death is not pertinent to the "telephone game" argument. I actually briefly addressed the argument in the body of this blog post - which I am still not convinced you have read.
I most certainly DO accept written testimony as evidence. The problem is that there is no CONTEMPORANEOUS written evidence for these Christian claims.
DeleteThere is no written evidence existing today that anyone who lived in the first century stated that John the Apostle lived until near the end of the first century nor do we have any written statement from someone who lived in the first century who claims to have met John the Apostle.
All claims that John lived to an old age and that persons such as Polycarp and Papias met him come from either Irenaeus in the last second century or Eusebius in the early FIFTH century.
That is hearsay, Steven.
As I said, if you are familiar with a body of literature disputing the widely held date of John's death, I'd be fascinated in reading it. In the meantime, I see no reason to doubt it.
DeleteAnd in either event, it is irrelevant to everything presented in this post - which I don't think you've read - and is not needed to answer the "telephone game" objection.
So while I will probably look into this in the future out of sheer curiosity, for the time being I'm done with this line of inquiry. If you'd like to comment upon something written in this post I'd be happy to expand upon it.
You said,
Delete"That is what is meant by the term “religious text” or “holy book” when it is used by a skeptic. It is a unique genre of writing which is all-or-nothing. In other words, because it is revered and followed by the adherents of a certain religion, it can only be regarded as fictional nonsense by those outside of said religion.
So the first thing I would point out is that when approaching the New Testament without religious faith, you are not automatically left with a collection of fables and myths. Rather, you are left with a collection of Greek documents which describe the life, ministry, and implications of a certain Jesus of Nazareth."
Very few skeptics that I know hold the view you have attributed to us. The Bible is just like every other book from Antiquity. There is some truth and most likely some fiction. The job of the scholar/historian is to examine a passage in question and decide in which category it should be placed or in a third category, labeled: "indeterminable". There are some claims in the Bible which cannot be proven as fact or fiction, such as the Virgin Birth. Only Mary knows the answer to that question, and she is long dead.
You said,
Delete"By inspection of the text alone, one can conclude these were written by men who were familiar with the geography, politics, people, and culture of first-century Palestine. This alone should the suggest authors who were close to the events of Jesus."
Just because an author is accurate regarding the geography and culture of the area in which his story occurs, does not in any way confirm that all the other details in the story are true or that the author knew the main character in the story.
"The Gospels are also filled with little details you would expect from eye-witness testimony. For instance, why did Mark decide provide the name of the blind beggar Bartimaeus? Why did he include the names of the sons of Simon of Cyrene? Why mention such useless details? The simplest answer is because Mark was tying the stories to real people whom the original audiences would have known."
Or by the time the non-eyewitness author of the Gospel of Mark heard the "Jesus Story" (after it had been in circulation for circa forty years) these little embellishments had already been added to the oral tradition. Or, "Mark" simply invented these details for stylistic/theological purposes to make his story more vivid/real.
You are jumping to conclusions based on nothing but assumptions of what someone who lived twenty centuries ago was thinking, my friend.
One more comment on that last point.
DeleteMaybe there really was a Bartemaius and the sons of Simon of Cyrene. But just because these details are correct doesn't mean that all claims in the Gospels are true or that eyewitnesses had to write theses stories.
Again, we already know that some of the claims in the Bible are true, such as the existence of Herod the Great, etc..
You said, "In addition, the choices of writing under the names of Mark, Luke, and Matthew would seem to be poor choices for a forger. It makes sense to steal John’s identity, but Mark and Luke were only friends of the Apostles. Matthew was an apostle, by not the most important one. So why would the texts become associated with those men? Again, the simplest answer is because those are simply the guys who wrote them."
DeleteThese books were NOT written under the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These names (as the authors) are no where to be found in these books. And, these names as the authors are no where to be found until the second half of the second century. For instance, Justin Martyr, writing in the first half of the second century never once refers to any of these men as authors of Holy Scripture.
We have no idea where these names were attributed to these four books in the late second century. All we can do is guess, but to ASSUME that the late second century assignment of authorship if absolute fact without any supporting evidence is simply jumping to another conclusion.
Your claims regarding "early attestation" are yet another Christian tradition without good evidence.
DeletePapias was a Gentile Christian living in Asia Minor. He specifically states that he never once met any of the Apostles or other eyewitnesses. He simply heard stories from people who allegedly knew disciples of the apostles. Therefore, Papias' information is second or third hand information, at best.
Papias was criticized by the Church Father, Eusebius, in the fourth century, for being an unreliable source and a teller of tall tales, so it is amazing to me how Christians are so eager to use a known story teller like Papias for the authorship of the Gospels.
And notice that Papias never says, "The book which we now call the "Gospel of Mark" was written by John Mark, writing down the sayings of Peter. Papias simply states that John Mark wrote a book. If Papias knew that John Mark had written down the sayings of Peter then why doesn't Justin Martyr or any other earlier Church Father make this claim?
The first mention of the traditional authorship of the four gospels comes from Irenaeus in the second half of the second century! Why don't we hear about the apostolic authorship of these books prior to the second half of the second century, almost 150 years after the death of Jesus?? Why are the earliest Church Fathers quoting Paul, but not Matthew and John? Why does Polycarp quote Paul several times in his epistle to the Philippians, but never quotes his alleged mentor (according to Irenaeus), John the Apostle??
As a Roman Catholic I am very surprised that you are pushing the idea of the traditional authorship of the Gospels. This is not the current thinking of most Roman Catholic Bible scholars. See this excerpt from a Roman Catholic website:
ReplyDelete..."They (the Gospels) were anonymously written. In fact most scholars today do not believe that the evangelists were eyewitnesses for the simple reason that their chronology of events and theological interpretations are different. The titles of the gospels were added in the second century and very well could designate the authority behind the finished gospel or the one who wrote one of the main sources of the gospel. The Church takes no official stance on their authorship. It is important to understand that the Church by its authority and the guidance of the Holy Spirit canonized these four gospels over many others that were circulated and read in the early centuries."
Source: http://www.aboutcatholics.com/beliefs/what-are-the-gospels/
You said,
ReplyDelete"What does this have to do with the authenticity of the Gospels? The fact that these books were universally accepted in the Christian world is evidence to their authenticity. It means every local church – from Carthage and Antioch to Jerusalem and Rome - read them and concluded, “Yep, this is what we heard from the Apostles.”
This is a blatant assumption. Just because all the (proto-orthodox) churches came to accept the gospels at some point in the mid to late second century does not mean that this is what the Eleven had taught them.
"What does this tell us? If Acts was written after the death of Paul, we would expect his martyrdom to be in the text. Thus, their absence means the book was written and completed before these events transpired. That is, before 67AD. This places the writing of Acts within 34 years of the crucifixion of Jesus."
ReplyDeleteYou can make this assumption, if you wish, but you are not a NT scholar. Like me, you are a novice. The majority of NT scholars, Christian and non-Christian, believe that the Book of Acts was written near the end of the first century.
You said,
ReplyDelete""Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed." - Luke 1:1-4
Notice the author of Luke does not name any eyewitnesses, he only states that he is passing on information that was originally obtained from eyewitnesses. So, Bob told Bill, who told Joe, who told Randy, who told Steve, what Bob had seen happen to Ned.
And you want us to trust "Steve's" story as eyewitness testimony?
You said,
ReplyDelete"But this is not what you see when you look at the Apostles or Gospel writers. Matthew was a wealthy tax collector. Luke was a doctor. John had connections to Jewish high society. Paul was a distinguished legal scholar. Peter had a family fishing business. Yet they gave it all up for a life of persecution, poverty, celibacy, and martyrdom. This is not the behavior of liars and conmen."
Most skeptics do not believe that the Eleven or Paul were liars. We believe that they were most likely very sincere, very superstitious, religious zealots who came to believe the claims of a novel, new religious sect.
But this has happened thousands of times throughout history. Very religious, sincere Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and persons of other religions have endured persecution and even death defending their beliefs. That doesn't mean their beliefs are true.
You have certainly spent much time writing these. I appreciate the thought you have put into them.
DeleteRegarding any event in the past, one can always raise the bar of skepticism high enough that whatever evidence exists is not enough. So, for instance, the four Gospels are consistently said by the early writers to be the work of Matt, Mark, Luke, and John. With no historical counter-witnesses disputing that claim, I'm going to treat that as my starting point.
It is true that the minute details could have been made up by a skilled forger. This is possible. However, it is also consistent with them being written by people on scene at the time. The only reason for me to run for the forgery hypothesis is by raising the bar of skepticism.
Same goes for the argument from the choices of Matt, Luke, and Mark. They are written anonymously. But the point stands that when someone got around to associating these things with a name - these were the names chosen. And if these were tales spun from whole cloth, it makes little sense to choose such peripheral names as Luke and Mark. These are all datapoints aggregating to the same conclusion.
The argument from early acceptance is one which I plan to write more about in the future. If the "telephone game" had occurred, I don't think we'd have seen the acceptance of the four Gospels and Paul's writings the way we do. Rather, I think we'd be seeing something similar to the Islamic Haddiths. There are thousands of Haddiths which come from many disparate sources. Different geographic groups of Muslims accept different ones. This is what I think we'd see if the Telephone Game had occurred. Instead, with everyone accepting the four Gospels - it points to these people all receiving the same message.
Earlier I said that I don't need John living till the 90's to deal with the Telephone Game objection. The reason why is because the real folks who will stop the telephone game are people who heard the original Apostolic preaching. Peter and Paul died in the 50's. That leaves only 20 years for Jesus to be supposedly mythologized into God. It stands to reason that community which had heard from both of those men would have objected.
Now, my favorite part of this essay was the argument from the missing ending of Acts. Scholar or not, it stands to reason that someone redacting the story of Paul would have wanted that conclusion. If the majority of NT scholar disagree, then I think they are mistaken.
Which brings me to something not yet mentioned. From my understanding, the reason why those NT scholars believe the Gospels were written late is because they contain accurate descriptions of the destruction of Jerusalem. And the only way they could know this is if they had witnessed it... because we all know that prophecies are impossible.
But I dispute that premise. If God is real, then prophecies are a live option. So before I'd accept the impossibility of prophecies (and by connection the late authorship of the Gospels) one would first have to disprove the existence of God. (But if someone did that I'd quickly lose interest in the whole thing and do something else with my time).
If not, the description of Jesus predicting the fall of Jerusalem fits in with the overall picture of an early Gospel. And with all of the other arrows pointing in that direction, I think one is justified in going with that.
Thanks for reading.
"So, for instance, the four Gospels are consistently said by the early writers to be the work of Matt, Mark, Luke, and John."
ReplyDeletePlease name even ONE early Church Father, prior to Irenaeus in the late second century, who quotes from one of the four gospels and mentions the traditional author (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) as the author of that gospel.
"That leaves only 20 years for Jesus to be supposedly mythologized into God.
ReplyDeleteChristians were still debating the divinity of Jesus in 325 AD at the Council of Nicea and for many years afterwards.
"If not, the description of Jesus predicting the fall of Jerusalem fits in with the overall picture of an early Gospel. And with all of the other arrows pointing in that direction, I think one is justified in going with that."
ReplyDeleteIf the story of Jesus' prediction of the fall of Jerusalem was first told after 70 AD, then it was not a prophecy but an act of fraud by the person who wrote the book that included this claim.
I cannot name any witnesses which do the precise thing you say. Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch both make references to the Gospels without naming their authors. Justin Martyr referenced them as the "memoirs of the Apostles". That gets you closer. Still, with the earliest -existing- witnesses referring to them as Matt, Mark, Luke, John - that is going to be my starting point.
DeleteOne of the myths propagated by Dan Brown was that the divinity of Jesus was debated at Nicaea. This is not the case. The Arians and Trinitarians both believed Jesus was a divine being. The argument was whether Jesus was coeternal and consubstantial with God the Father, or was a created, carbon-copy of God. In other words, the controversy at Nicaea was the mode in which Jesus was divine.
Indeed... if the story was first told after 70AD it could well be called a forgery. The point is one cannot just assume the inclusion of that prophecy automatically means it was written after 70AD. The other option was that it was a real prophecy. And if God is real, then that is a real live option.
So which is it? One would need some argument to tip the scale in either direction. And that's why I point to the missing ending of Acts as a very persuasive argument. With the very simple and likely assumption that a chonicaler of Paul's ministry would have liked to include the dramatic ending, I find myself with good reason to believe Luke was written before the Paul's death.
This certainly has been an interesting exchange and I hope to make another post in the future highlighting some of these points. Thanks for visiting and spending so much time here.
"Indeed... if the story was first told after 70AD it could well be called a forgery. The point is one cannot just assume the inclusion of that prophecy automatically means it was written after 70AD. The other option was that it was a real prophecy. And if God is real, then that is a real live option."
DeleteVery true. However, if such a situation existed in another religion, such as Islam, which would be your first assumption:
1. A genuine prophecy (a correct prediction of a future event).
2. an act of fraud in an attempt to convince readers of the veracity of the religion's claims.
Think about that, Steven. Can you admit that if this "prophecy" were not in your religion your first assumption would be that it was an act of fraud, written AFTER the event it pretends to predict?
"So which is it? One would need some argument to tip the scale in either direction. And that's why I point to the missing ending of Acts as a very persuasive argument. With the very simple and likely assumption that a chonicaler of Paul's ministry would have liked to include the dramatic ending, I find myself with good reason to believe Luke was written before the Paul's death."
DeleteYou are certainly welcome to your opinion, Steven, but the overwhelming majority of NT experts disagree with you. You are doing the same thing as someone who argues against Climate Change, a position which the overwhelming majority of experts in the field believes is fact.
The appeal to authority is the weakest of all arguments. It isn't enough to say, "The majority of experts believe in X". One can then ask, "Why do the majority of experts believe X?"
DeleteI happen to know the reason why these "experts" believe the Gospels were written after 70AD. Its a bad assumption. It has nothing to do with their expertise, but is owed to other philosophical predispositions.
So you can appeal to the authority of these experts until you are blue in the face. But I see no reason to heed the conclusions drawn from a bad assumption. First they'd have to prove that their naturalistic assumptions are valid by disproving the existence of God. Then I'd give them my ear.
Now, let's suppose I found a prophecy in another religion. One question I'd ask is, "What are the implications of this prophecy being genuine?"
If the genuineness of that prophecy forces a conclusion which contradicts something else which I have good reasons to believe... then yes I would be more skeptical toward it.
But that's not anything unique to me. Anyone who encounters a claim which contradicts something he/she has good reasons to believe will respond with skepticism to that claim.
Well... you have left me about twenty comments in this space. I am satisfied with the answers I have given, even if you are not. I plan to revisit some of these matters in a future post, but for now I think our business is concluded.
The experts, New Testament scholars, believe that the Gospels were NOT written by eyewitnesses or the associates of eyewitnesses. Why do Christians insist that skeptics believe in the historicity of Jesus based on expert opinion, but then turn around and reject the opinion of these same experts on the authorship of the Gospels?
ReplyDeleteI have compiled a list of sources which confirm the majority expert opinion on this issue:
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/majority-of-scholars-agree-the-gospels-were-not-written-by-eyewitnesses/
Arguments from bare authority and consensus are very weak. I'm far more interested in WHY they would say such things and whether those reasons stand up to scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteSo you believe that we should not accept expert opinion until we have thoroughly examined and understand the reasons for why the experts have arrived at their position?
DeleteDo you do this for every area of life in which you are not an expert?
Defering to an expert is a good way to save time, and is unavoidable in everyday life. For instance, when I recently had a surgery I had to put a lot of implicit trust in my surgeon. However, every time I had a question about the details, he was kind enough to give me a good explanation of his reasons.
DeleteHowever, suppose I ran across someone who says, “I refuse to give you my underlying reasosn for this. You must defer to this argument from consensus and authority.”
That is a good motive to become suspicious and to become MORE interested in the underlying reasons. And in this case, I believe this consensus of experts reasons from a faulty premise and come to an erroneous conclusion. I dissent from that consensus and believe I have good reason to do so. And simply crying, “BUT THE CONSENSUS!!! YOU MUST DEFER TO THEM!!”… will do nothing to disuade me.
The reasons that scholars do not believe the Gospels were written by eyewitness sources can be easily found. No one is refusing to provide the reason. No one is demanding that you defer to expert opinion on this issue based on hidden reasons.
DeleteYou seem to believe that the majority of NT scholars are biased? What is their bias?
I'm fairly certain we've been through this before. The reason why said scholars believe the Gospels were written late is because they contain references to Jesus prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
ReplyDeleteThe consensus of scholars surmise that such a prediction would have been impossible, and that prophecies don't really happen. Thus, they conclude the Gospels represent the work of later Christian communities reflecting upon the destruction of Jerusalem ... and putting the event into the mouth of their deceased leader as a prophecy.
I don't think that reason holds much water. Predicting the destruction of Jerusalem wasn't a very outlandish prediction given Rome's history of conquest and the political climate of the time. And I also think genuine prophecies CAN happen. So I reject their criteria ... and throw out their conclusion.
From there, no argument from authority and consensus will deter me in any way. And if you think you're accomplishing anything by insisting I defer to a majority opinion which I know operates upon faulty premises... then you are wasting your time and mine.
The majority of NT scholars are Christians; they believe in the existence of God; therefore they believe in the existence of the supernatural. It isn't that they don't believe that the supernatural exists. They simply do not see any way to examine supernatural claims by traditional historical methodology.
DeleteThat is not the same as a bias against the supernatural and against prophecy.