2010-05-17

An overlooked source for Mark’s gospel?

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by Neil Godfrey

I don’t recall hearing many references to the works of Philo as a source for the Gospel of Mark. Maybe there are good reasons for this that I have yet to learn.

Philo was a Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, in the early part of the first century. He would have been in his late 40’s when Jesus was supposedly 30 years old.

Last month I posted what looks to me like an instance where the author of the Gospel of Mark drew on a particular image and thought that we also find in Philo. Who said this? was about a parable or riddle of Jesus in Mark:

Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean. (Mark 7:15)

In that post — and it was further elaborated with contributions from others in the comments, if I recall — I noted the same idea expressed as its converse in similar imagery:

as Plato says, mortal things find their entrance, and immortal things their exit. For into the mouth do enter meat and drink, perishable food of a perishable body; but from out of it proceed words — the immortal laws of an immortal soul, by means of which a rational life is regulated. (Philo, On the Creation, 119)

There is another saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark that also comes to mind when reading the same work of Philo, On the Creation (or Opus Mundi).

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27)

The Jesus Seminar voted that this is something very like what Jesus probably said. Maurice Casey (Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel) discussed it at length to argue that “the cultural context” should inform readers that Jesus implied that his use of “man” or “mankind” here was nonetheless applicable to Jews only. He quotes the 1947 CNT (presumably the Commentaire du Nouveau Testament?) to confirm that Jesus would not have meant to include non-Jews in this sabbath saying:

As a matter of historical fact the Sabbath was not made for man in general. At the time when the saying was uttered the sabbath was a distinctive peculiarity of the Jews: and our evidence goes to show that they regarded it as such and resented any non-Jewish observance of it. (T. W. Manson, `Mark II. 27f’, CNT 11, 1947, 138-46, at 145, followed by Beare, `Sabbath’, 132.)

He also cites the Mekhilta Shabbath I, Exod. 31:12-17:

R. Simeon ben Menasya says: Look! It says, `And you shall keep the sabbath, for it is holy to you’ (Exod. 31.14). The sabbath is delivered to you and you are not delivered to the sabbath.

That last sentence is famous for its similarity to the passage in the Gospel of Mark.

Some scholars (e.g. Casey, Crossley and no doubt others) use this late rabbinic passage as part of their efforts to set the scene for Jesus’ day. But this does not work. The Jewish Encyclopedia says R. Simeon ben Menasya was a contemporary of R. Judah ha-Nasi I, and Wikipedia informs me that he lived and died around the late second century or early third century — assuming that this Wikipedia article is about the same rabbi. So the Mekhilta does not appear to trace the saying any earlier than a rabbi who lived in the late second or early third century. To use this passage to help reconstruct the ideas floating around in the time of Jesus is a bit like taking a text from a Chinese author in today’s Singapore and attempting to use it to reconstruct a thought extant in imperial Shanghai in 1800. It may be an accurate match, but we can’t bet on it without additional evidence. It is just as likely that the late rabbinic saying found its way into Jewish thought via Christian contacts.

But Philo wrote something in the first half of the first century, in Egypt, that also suggests the same idea Mark’s gospel attributes to Jesus:

XXX. (89) But after the whole world had been completed according to the perfect nature of the number six, the Father hallowed the day following, the seventh, praising it, and calling it holy. For that day is the festival, not of one city or one country, but of all the earth; a day which alone it is right to call the day of festival for all people, and the birthday of the world. (On the Creation)

Now that to me is clear evidence that the 1947 CNT article quoted above is not the whole story when it says there is clear evidence “that they (the Jews) . . .  resented any non-Jewish observance of it (the sabbath).” Philo here could hardly have resented it if gentiles celebrated the sabbath day. He suggests here that he would find gentile observance extremely praiseworthy.

And here we have a Jewish intellectual writing that the sabbath is a day that is given to all mankind. So one must ask how original is the verse in Mark?

But how likely is it that the author of Mark might have known Philo’s writings?

If we knew who wrote the gospel we could answer that without much difficulty.

Irenaeus associates the Gospel of Mark with the gnostic teacher Basilides — who happened to live in the same Alexandria as Philo a generation or two earlier. Clement of Alexandria wrote that Basilides was a disciple of Glaucias, “the interpreter of Peter”, and that he wrote a gospel himself. It’s a long shot, but one is reminded of other early “traditions” that Mark was composed from the memories of Peter. All of this is speculative, and there are other speculations from equally thin slivers of evidence that Mark was composed in Rome. There are reasons also to locate its author in Syria.

In the meantime, I think we now have two passages — closely positioned — in one work of Philo’s, On the Creation, that strike me as having resonance in the Gospel of Mark.


2010-05-15

Genesis myths inspired by Plato?

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by Neil Godfrey

There was an interesting article in the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament in 2007 by Lukas Niesiolowski-Spano (LN-S) of Warsaw University titled “Primeval History in the Persian Period?” (SJOT, Vol.21, no. 12, 106-126, 2007). The paper was first presented at the Seminar of Historical Methodology in Groningen, The Netherlands, 2004.

The Genesis creation stories are unlike other ancient Middle Eastern myths. LN-S refers to the “unparalleled character of the Primeval History in its Near Eastern environment”, and attributes this to the influence of Platonic philosophy in their making.

The assumption throughout the discussion is that no text can be dated earlier than external testimony permits. Genesis, in particular, its first two chapters, cannot be dated any earlier than when we find other texts making reference to them. In other words, normal practical historical methodology that applies to any nonbiblical study is followed. Dr LN-S is a lecturer in the Department of Ancient History at the University of Warsaw.

I begin here with some evidence for the earliest knowledge of Genesis, though LN-S really adds this at the end of his article. (I have colour coded some of the following sections to make for easier browsing of the main thought sections I have taken from LN-S’s article.)

What is the earliest evidence for Genesis? Continue reading “Genesis myths inspired by Plato?”


2010-05-12

Why even nonbeliever historians may still need a historical Jesus

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by Neil Godfrey

iconoclasm
Iconoclasm: Image by ambery via Flickr

I have not been able to fully grasp why some nonbeliever historians are so strident in their insistence that there is strong evidence for a historical Jesus and refuse to even contemplate for a moment, along with their believing peers, that they might be violating the simple foundational basics of practical historical enquiry. These basics, and the failure of historical Jesus historians to use them or even be aware of them are discussed in my earlier post:

  1. the nature of historical facts and the contrast between nonbiblical and historical Jesus historical methods
  2. and in a follow-up post discussing Scot McKnight’s discussion of biblical historiography.

But the reason has hit me. It came from reading follow-up works cited by Warsaw University lecturer, Dr Lukasz Niesiolowski-Spano (Primeval History in the Persian Period? 2007). These were Intellectuals and Tradition by S. N. Eisenstadt (Daedalus, vol. 101, no. 2, Spring 1972, pp.1-19) and Intellectuals, Tradition, and the Traditions of Intellectuals: Some Preliminary Considerations by Edward Shils (Daedalus, vol. 101, no. 2, Spring 1972, pp.21-34).

And the reason is now so obvious I am kicking myself for not seeing it earlier. If I did see it earlier it was only murkily.

History is always necessarily created by a society’s intellectuals. They shape the images that a society sees about itself and its past — its identity.

The sociological study of tradition has argued . . . that the formation of traditions is the activity of an intellectual elite, not the work of the community as a whole. This runs counter to a position often expressed or presumed in biblical studies. Yet S. N. Eisenstadt specifically identifies society’s intellectuals as the “creators and carriers of traditions.” This is true for many different kinds of tradition, including that of the historical traditions. The historian, as an intellectual, is the creator and maintainer of historical tradition. E. Shils makes the statement:

Images about the past of one’s own society, of other societies, and of mankind as a whole are also traditions. At this point, tradition and historiography come very close to each other. The establishment and improvement of images of the past are the tasks of historiography. Thus historiography creates images for transmission as tradition.

Of course, there may be a great many inherited images of the past — traditions of almost infinite variety. But their selective collection and organization according to chronological and thematic or “causal” relationships is the intellectual activity of historiography. (pp. 34-35 of Primeval History)

What has modern historical Jesus research been about if not an attempt by different scholars to establish and improve our culture’s most central iconic image? Continue reading “Why even nonbeliever historians may still need a historical Jesus”


My favourite James blog

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by Neil Godfrey

Two of the things I do not like about my blog are that it is not funny and it always seems to be picking on anyone named James. So to make up a little for both faults I am compelled to give prominent linkage to Dr. Jim’s Thinking Shop & Tea Room. The theology of this particular James is impeccable and his humour divine.


2010-05-11

A common meaning behind Gospel of Mark’s cornplucking and divorce controversies

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by Neil Godfrey

Though Crossley and Casey have written many thousands of words to show how these two episodes (sabbath cornfield dispute and divorce controversy) can be used to date Mark before 40 c.e., I find their arguments circular, convoluted and ultimately speculative. If I thought they had a widespread impact I would take the time to address them in more detail than I did in my earlier post on their early dating of Mark.

Meanwhile, I find if I read these passages as they are worded now, and within the broader context of the gospel’s message itself, and try very hard to avoid reading them through third century rabbinic writings or speculative Aramaic sources or other gospels written later than Mark, I can see something in them that I think is very interesting.

They both share the theme of a call for disciples to return to how things were at the very beginning of creation. In this they share a message found in certain gnostic type writings. (Mark also shares the syzygies or paradoxes found in some gnostic type sayings (e.g. the blind see, the dead live, etc), although Mark fleshes them out into narrative form.)

Example: In the sabbath cornfield dispute, Mark has Jesus pronounce that “the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath.” This is in response to Pharisees accusing Jesus’ disciples of violating the sabbath by plucking corn, and as a follow-up to the analogy of David being allowed to eat the shewbread sacred to the priests. It seems to me as if this is suggesting that for all the Mosaic or other rules that might have come to historic or contemporary importance, what Jesus wants is for people to accept things how they were meant to be, and how they were, back at the beginning. God gave the sabbath for mankind, and the Son of God had come now and wanted everything how it was meant to be from the start. Continue reading “A common meaning behind Gospel of Mark’s cornplucking and divorce controversies”


Biblioblogs peddling bigotry and ignorance

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by Neil Godfrey

Daily Mirror headline from www.currybet.net blog

I rarely look at anything much on the web now unless it is (a) work related; (b) news related (don’t read “real” newspapers anymore); (c) and gmail. Work consumes most of my time, and this blog is a kind of mental escape.

But today I decided to have a look at what a few other blogs are doing, particularly biblioblogs. I had thought biblioblogs were blogs about the Bible, but that appears to be only partially true. I had also expected those blogs run by professional scholars would be in the lead when it came to promoting tolerance and humane values. I have kind of tended to associate secularism, rationalism and humanism with advanced studies, and to think that more often than not they are accompanied by the more progressive and democratic values.

So I guess my naivety was hit hard when I checked out numero uno biblioblog by an academic and church pastor, Zwinglius Redivivus. The Bible passage that this biblioblogger seems to repeat most often is

“Do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them, because I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their distress. (Jeremiah 11:14)

And it is always in connection with a newsbyte worthy of the worst scandal rag of a newspaper from a Rupert Murdoch publication. The worst news sells papers when its wrapped up in the worst possible titillating or bigoted way, and it appears to be what a lot of other academics in religious departments want to read on a regular basis — at least when it comes packaged with Doctor Jim’s Jeremiads.

Is there an article about incest? Or a plot to murder? Then bring it on and flaunt it with all the bigoted ignorance of a mind still warped by primitive b.c. ramblings of hate and judgment. Continue reading “Biblioblogs peddling bigotry and ignorance”


God taught Cain the wisdom of Plato

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by Neil Godfrey

I have been doing some follow up reading on a paper presented at a Netherlands Seminar on Historical Methodology and chanced upon the following passage from Plato in Timaeus. It is speaking of newly created human beings at the dawn of time:

in the second place, they must have love, in which pleasure and pain mingle; also fear and anger, and the feelings which are akin or opposite to them; if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously.

Given the context of the paper I was reading, it was not hard to hear the echo of God’s instruction to Cain in Genesis 4:

And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.
So the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

Many of us can acknowledge that this instruction to Cain is an unusual image in the context of a primeval tale about Cain and the first murder. Sin is something that must be mastered, ruled, lest it master or rule us. It is a striking image that has prompted countless discussions among believers.

And there it is, the same image, sitting in the writings of Plato. Not only the same image, but the same same context of the sin of anger.

Now I’ve given the away what my next post will be about — the lateness of the composition of Genesis and the influence of Greek philosophy, particularly Platonic thought, that went into the creation of its myths.



2010-05-10

Dating Mark early

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by Neil Godfrey

Rob did not read the rules
Image by mizinformation via Flickr

In order to know how to interpret a document it is very often helpful to know when it was written. Maurice Casey (Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel) and James Crossley (The Date of Mark’s Gospel), however, turn this around and use their interpretation of the Gospel of Mark to determine when the Gospel was written. They date this gospel to within ten years of the supposed death of Jesus.

They begin by falling in line with the untested and unquestioned assumption of their peers that assumes that the gospels are based on a historical Jesus. There is no evidence for this proposition, so biblical scholars proceed by means of a circular methodology to discover the evidence they need to support it by analyzing different parts of the gospel texts. Cultural tradition and contemporary public and institutional support for this process enables it to flourish unquestioned, and give licence to its practitioners to ignore or ridicule any attempts to expose their circularity. Words of practical advice from Schweitzer and Schwartz to Hobsbawm and Thompson are dismissed. Discussions by Elton and Carr on historiography are misrepresented. They have learned nothing from the exposure of the same methodological flaws at the root of Albrightianism. All this has been addressed in previous posts and comments.

One passage addressed by Casey and Crossley in support of their case that the Gospel of Mark was written before 40 c.e. is Mark 2:23-28

And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn.
And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?
And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?
How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him?
And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

Even though there is no historical evidence for a strong presence of Pharisees in Galilee until after the Jewish war and the fall of Jerusalem in 70; and even though we have no evidence that the laws of Leviticus were widely practised in Galilee in the time of Jesus; and even though Casey and Crossley concede there is no evidence that there was any sabbath law regarding the picking of grain until late rabbinic times, and even though there is evidence that the Pharisees were in fact far more lenient towards the poor and did not make crushing burdensome rules for them and were popular among the poor, Casey and Crossley, and many of their peers, are convinced that scenes like this are historical.

Importance of an Aramaic source Continue reading “Dating Mark early”


2010-05-09

“Minimalist” Thomas Thompson’s take on The Messiah Myth

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by Neil Godfrey

Thomas L. Thompson’s The Messiah Myth can be a somewhat mystifying read for anyone looking for an engagement with conventional historical Jesus studies. It can leave a reader who is looking for a repeat of this scholar’s demolition of the historicity of the biblical Patriarchs and Kingdom of Israel even more flummoxed. In his first chapter he explains:

The purpose of this book is not historical reconstruction. Nor is it centered in the problems of the historical Jesus. (p.16)

Rather,

It is about the influence of the ancient Near Eastern figure of the king in biblical literature, and this has much to do with how figures such as Jesus are created.

So Thompson is addressing Jesus as he has been created out of this Near Eastern literary figure, and not a historical figure behind the gospels.

Thompson sees no evidence for a historical figure. He critiques historical Jesus studies since the days of Schweitzer for “lack of clarity” in the method by which scholars have approached the gospels and attempted to find in them historical information.

On the one hand [Schweitzer] assumed that Jesus existed apart from the gospels and on the other that the gospels were about this historical person and reflected his beliefs. This lack of clarity in method supported the radical separation of a Jesus of history from the Christ of faith. (p.8)

Thompson sees an even more profound error in what he believes is a prevalent misreading of the apocalyptic images in the Gospels. This is something I am still thinking through. I am waiting to read Amos and the Cosmic Imagination by James Linville (to get a different but presumably related perspective from Thomspon’s — meet Dr Jim [Link //drjimsthinkingshop.com/about/ and blog is no longer active… Neil, 23rd Sept, 2015]) as part of my attempt to grasp the rationale for understanding apocalyptic language as something other than an expression of literal beliefs in apocalyptic scenarios. Will return to this question at the end of the post.

A difficult assumption

That the stories of the gospels are about a historical person is a difficult assumption. To what extent does the figure of Jesus — like the figures of Abraham, Moses and Job — fulfill a function in a narrative discourse about something else? Is Jesus rather — like so many other great figures on ancient literature — the bearer of a writer’s parable? The question does not refer to our knowledge of a historical person. It asks about the meaning and function of biblical texts. (p.9)

This question — what is the meaning and function of the gospels — is one Thompson addresses in The Messiah Myth in a way that few other scholars have done. Certainly historical Jesus scholars acknowledge the Gospels are theology and faith-messages. But they also assume they are records of oral traditions traced back to a historical event, and in so doing they violate the very basics of scholarly historical enquiry by reconstructing Jesus and early Christianity upon an untested and unquestioned assumption. Thompson argues that Gospels are born not from a set of unique oral traditions, but from a well established literary matrix traceable back through centuries and millennia.

Literary creations replace their authors Continue reading ““Minimalist” Thomas Thompson’s take on The Messiah Myth”


2010-05-07

The Dark Side of Jesus: His call to hate one’s family to be his disciple

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by Neil Godfrey

Image by Srta. Lobo via Flickr

Does Luke 14:25-26 really mean what it says?

Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”

The Good News Bible has a different “translation” (whitewash) of this:

Whoever comes to me cannot be my disciple unless he loves me more than he loves his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers, and his sisters and himself as well.

I’ve heard the Luke passage explained away so often by redefining of “hate” to mean “love less by comparison”. Appeal is made to Matthew 10:37 that really does say:

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

But Hector Avalos in The End of Biblical Studies shows that this sugarcoated meaning is false. Appealing to Matthew is useless. Luke can hardly have written on the understanding that all his readers had already read Matthew and would accordingly understand that he (Luke) did not really mean “hate”.

The Greek word for ‘hate’, μισεο (miseo), never means “to love Y more than X”.

In every place the word is used in Greek biblical texts the word means the opposite of love.

So Samson’s wife wept before him, saying, ‘You hate me; you do not really love me.” (Judg. 14:16 in the Greek Septuagint)

Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. (Amos 5:15 in the Greek Septuagint)

No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Luke 16:13)

As Avalos remarks on the other Lucan passage above, it is clear here that the author means that it is impossible to both have love and hate for the same person. They are not matters of degree, but of exclusive either/or.

Those who insist that “hate” really means “love less by comparison” run into a problem when they apply that definition to the Amos passage. It would mean that God commands his people to love evil less than good. It’s okay to love evil a little bit.

Avalos comments on the arbitrary nature of Christian apologetics:

The arbitrary nature of Christian apologetics in Luke 14:26 can also be gauged by an unwillingness to treat occurrences of “love” in the same manner. That is to say, few, if any, of the same interpreters that want to treat “hate” comparatively in Luke 14:26 will do so for “love”. But we could just as well posit that “love X = hate Y more than X.” Indeed, there is a great circularity at work in saying that Jesus cannot mean hate in Luke 14:26 because he preaches “love” elsewhere. But we can reverse this rationale and argue that Jesus probably did not mean “love” literally elsewhere because he clearly meant “hate” in Luke 14:26. (p.51)

 

 


2010-05-06

Free Will and the Value of Self-Deception

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by Neil Godfrey

The paper of the day: “The Value of Believing in Free Will.” A scientific study that shows why many scientists and philosophers are reluctant to tell people they don’t have free will.

This is from the commonsenseatheism site, which many readers of this blog will already have seen, but for the others, it’s interesting reading. I think I can relate to its conclusions.

For those who don’t want to read the whole thing or want to test the water, some extracts:

The belief that one determines one’s own outcomes is strong and pervasive. In a massive survey of people in 36 countries, more than 70% agreed with the statement that their fate is in their own hands (International Social Survey Programme, 1998).

Yet the view from the scientific community is that behavior is caused by genes underlying personality dispositions, brain mechanisms, or features of the environment (e.g., Bargh, in press; Crick, 1994; Pinker, 2002). There is reason to think that scientists’ sentiment is spreading to nonscientists. For example, the news magazine The Economist recently ran the headline, ‘‘Free to Choose? Modern Neuroscience Is Eroding the Idea of Free Will’’ (‘‘Free to Choose?’’ 2006). What would happen if people came to believe that their behavior is the inexorable product of a causal chain set into motion without their own volition? Would people carry on, selves and behavior unperturbed, or, as Sartre suggested, might the adoption of a deterministic worldview serve as an excuse for untoward behaviors?

That’s the opener. The conclusion . . . . Continue reading “Free Will and the Value of Self-Deception”


2010-05-04

How did Jesus become a God? (or How did Christianity begin?)

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by Neil Godfrey

(How On Earth Did Jesus Become a God?) raises some interesting points about how Christians came to worship Christ alongside God. He focuses on the role of personal revelation (hallucination?). My initial response to his book was to think that his explanation was as vacuous as saying “God did it”, and that it was not an explanation at all. Indeed, he finds it necessary to defend his explanation against other scholars who do not give it the time of day. But I have come to think there is probably more to what he is arguing than I first understood, although he would disagree with my slant.

(Hurtado’s problem is greater than mine, however, because he is seeking to explain how a historical human of recent memory was exalted to be worshiped alongside God, and I don’t think Hurtado’s explanation is sufficient to explain that. But it may well go some way towards helping explain the development of the exalted Christ concept alongside God that we find in Paul’s and other New Testament letters. Hurtado also expresses disapproval of interpreting revelatory experiences as psychopathology and downplays related personal and social crises factors.)

Hurtado asks

what might have moved Jews in touch with their religious tradition to feel free to offer to Jesus the kind of unparalleled cultic devotion that characterized early Christian religious practice? (p.198)

How exalted was Jesus Christ in early Christian thought?

Pretty high up.

God made life, the universe and everything else through Jesus, and Jesus keeps everyone alive and everything in existence now:

yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. (1 Cor. 8:6)

has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; (Hebrews 1:2)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. (John 1:1-3)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. (Colossians 1:15-17)

And God has ordained that everything and everyone should worship him:

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)

Is there anything unusual here?

Hurtado (rightly) struggles to understand how a mere mortal should be exalted to this God-status level and worshiped alongside God. Continue reading “How did Jesus become a God? (or How did Christianity begin?)”


2010-05-03

Evidence for the UNhistorical “fact” of Jesus’ death

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by Neil Godfrey

Naked Chocolate Jesus
Image by Chuckumentary via Flickr

The evidence historians use to assert that Jesus’ crucifixion is a historical fact does not match the evidence for the death of Socrates. Normal guidelines for secular historians that are used in their approach to sources are very rarely followed by biblical (in particular historical Jesus and early Christianity) historians.

Paula Fredriksen, in her Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, speaks of “facts”.

We have facts. Facts about Jesus, and facts about the movement that formed after his crucifixion. Facts are always subject to interpretation — that’s part of the fun — but they also exist as fixed points in our investigation.  .  .  .

So let’s put our facts up front in order to begin our search here. What do we know about Jesus of Nazareth, and how do these facts enable us to start out on the road to a solid and plausible historical portrait of him? The single most solid fact about Jesus’ life is his death: he was executed by the Roman prefect Pilate, on or around Passover, in the manner Rome reserved particularly for Roman insurrectionists, namely, crucifixion. (pp.7-8)

I wish I could quote what she says about the evidence for these facts but this is left implicit. This is a shame, because the evidence itself is worth serious discussion and analysis in order to establish its nature and value to the historian. Surprisingly in the light of her very strong assertions of the existence of “facts” about Jesus, Fredriksen at no point explains how we can know or believe that these really are the “facts”. She does not explicitly explain to readers the evidence for what she insists so strongly is “the single most solid fact about Jesus’ life”.

Genuine historical method exposes the fallacies of biblical “historians”

I will show in this post that a justifiable historical approach to sources and evidence leaves the historian with NO evidence for Jesus’ death as a fact of history. Only by lazy assumptions about their sources can biblical “historians” declare Jesus’ crucifixion a “fact of history”.

Biblical “historians” actually begin with theological claims and tales of the supernatural and miraculous that have absolutely no historical value, and proceed to infer that these fancies arose from interpretations of a real historical event, and on this basis assert that the “fact” is truly historical. (Supposed testimony from Josephus and Tacitus can be shown to be an afterthought.)

In other words, Paula Fredriksen is but one of a host of biblical “historians” who “do history” according to the analogy of the silly detectives in my earlier post.

Continue reading “Evidence for the UNhistorical “fact” of Jesus’ death”


2010-05-02

Applying Sound Historical Methodology to “James the Brother of the Lord”

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by Neil Godfrey

It is easy for both historicists and mythicists to to descend to shallow proof-texting when arguing over the significance of Paul’s reference to James, the brother of the Lord, as evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

I am not attempting here in this post to cover all the arguments. I only want to address the necessity for a broad approach to the question and to rescue it from the tendency to reduce it to a simplistic positive/negative point.

Galatians 1:19

I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.

Renowned conservative historian, Sir Geoffrey Elton, warns against deploying such simplistic methods as citing a single piece of evidence to make a case. In this instance, the case is about evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

Historical research does not consist, as beginners in particular often suppose, in the pursuit of some particular evidence that will answer a particular question (G.R. Elton, The Practice of History, p.88)

If that’s what historical research is not, Elton goes on to explain what it is:

it consists of an exhaustive, and exhausting, review of everything that may conceivably be germane to a given investigation. Properly observed, this principle provides a manifest and efficient safeguard against the dangers of personal selection of evidence. (p.88)

Amen! The dangers of personal selection of evidence in historical Jesus research are spotlighted by each reconstructed “historical Jesus” being in some recognizable image of its author.

Jesus historicists are particularly guilty of falling into the trap of “beginners” that Elton warns against when responding to mythicist arguments. Of course they know better when engaging in professional work among their peers. They generally avoid taking mythicist arguments seriously, and this is why they respond like amateurs. Continue reading “Applying Sound Historical Methodology to “James the Brother of the Lord””