Messiah vs. Messiah: Déjà vu and James McGrath

Messiah vs. Messiah: Déjà vu and James McGrath

By Thomas Verenna

James has recently scolded me for not calling him by his first name. Out of our mutual respect, I am pleased to do so as formalities in these matters, while proper and traditional, are not realistic. I was pleased to see that James did not bring up any new arguments which I have not already addressed in my initial correspondence with him which will make this reply much easier to work with, even if I find myself restating points I had already made earlier. That is the consequence of bloggersations, I suppose.

Much of James’ post is, to say the least, a restatement of his own convictions rather then attempts at finding solutions. For example, he writes again on the consensus of historians on a historical Jesus. But, as I addressed in my previous article, there is no consensus among historians on Jesus. There is an alleged consensus (i.e. that everyone just assumes what everyone else’s opinions are), but James would be hard pressed to show that 95% of scholars (the amount of scholars needed for an actual ‘consensus’) all agree on the historical nature of the figure of Jesus. I would ask James to not only present me with his data for coming to the conclusion that such a consensus exists, but that he prove that even with that consensus that scholars cannot be wrong as a whole. As I pointed out initially, scholars as a whole have been wrong about historicity of biblical characters and events before (in fact, in every case where historicity has been assumed in its core in the Patriarchal narratives, 100% of the claims for historicity have been wrong).

But let us assume for a moment that James is correct in his assumption. Let’s just pretend that Jesus scholars are in a consensus about the historical Jesus, and 95% of them all agree to historical nuances concerning Jesus; who he was, when he lived, when he died, his age at his death, what his goals were, and (per James) how he failed. Would these conclusions be based on evidence or on speculation? That would depend on James’ ability to provide me with a method of separating the fiction from the fact in the Gospel accounts. Until then, it would not change the fact that scholars are routinely looking into the well of historical Jesus scholarship, seeing whatever is reflected back at them from the water below, and calling that Jesus. This flexibility over what is historical and what is not is not only a refutation to the claim for consensus, it is a clear indication that there is no way one can fracture the narrative successfully and indicate what is historical and what isn’t.

Another example of a restated argument which has already been addressed is the claim that:

I said in the post to which I pointed Tom that the crucifixion provides strong evidence for the existence of Jesus, since being executed by the foreign rulers over the Jewish nation would have been considered by most to mean automatic disqualification as a candidate for being the Messiah. I stand by that argument, and in response to Tom’s points in his post, I’ll elaborate further.

Just saying the crucifixion “provides strong evidence” is not itself evidence of anything except James’ own circular reasoning. It’s circular that the crucifixion provides evidence because it relies solely on the text that is the subject of our investigations here. In other words, James is assuming the point in dispute. James would need to provide a strong case for the historicity of the crucifixion from actual evidence; but he would have to do so by ignoring other equally plausible ways in which Jesus died and where he died (not to mention when, and who did the killing) that other scholars have postulated and put forth. (Which I actually already laid out in the article to James which initiated this bloggersation) James’ statement is no different than if I said that Dionysus being torn limb from limb by the Titans provides strong evidence for the existence of Dionysus (being torn limb from limb is a pretty gruesome and humiliating means to die!), or Orpheus being slain by fundamentalist Dionysian worshippers must be evidence (or in James’ words, “strong evidence”) for the existence of Orpheus (I would say that a strong, adventurous Greek being slain by a group of ravenous women would be humiliating as well).

No, James, none of this is evidence for any of these literary characters who were worshipped by little Christian-like cults, centuries before Christianity came onto the scene. These events are only strong evidence for the characters within the story. Beyond the narratives themselves, none of these events are evidence for anything.

James’ main arguments seem to be about my use of Isaiah as a model for Markan narrative, which he ad hocs a lot using a restated argument which I had earlier already dealt with (i.e. that being executed by foreign rulers would be instant disqualification by “most”); restating this over and over is not going to prove it any faster, regardless how many times James will allege it. Unless I’m mistaken and we’re tallying points, evidence must be presented when making a conclusion such as this. Conversely, recent studies in socio-culture concerning Jews in the Diaspora and in Palestine during the Hellenistic and Roman periods shows not only a high level of assimilation of Jews in the Diaspora and in Palestine, but also that Jews were fighting in Greek armies willingly, some attended Greek schools and even became governors over districts where they sent troops against their own kin. Orpheus depicted as a Jew can be found painted on Jewish synagogue walls, some Jewish epitaphs are inscribed on tombstones in Greek, some in Latin, with veneration of Greek Gods. Inscriptions over Jewish businesses in Alexandria reflect veneration of the Ptolemy’s as Gods. Claiming, as James does, that “most” Jews agreed on anything in the Hellenistic and Roman period is naivety at its best.

But it does not stop there, as clearly Mark felt (and Paul, and Chloe, and Clement, and every other early Christian who converted) that being killed by a “foreign” ruler (I hesitate to use ‘foreign’ as James does, as the Jews growing up in Palestine in the first century would not have been alive when the Romans had taken over the region from the Seleukids; the Romans were not foreigners to Jews who were already into their Second-Generation under the empire) was not “immediate disqualification.” Jews did not have a set Orthodoxy (see recent studies discussed above). We know of 30+ Jewish sects that existed in the first century CE, but there were undoubtedly more than that. Each had their own distinctiveness. Just the two most popular sects from the Gospels, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, had very different concepts of the Messiah. The Qumran texts (which James alludes to briefly in his post to Hambydammit’s excellent critiques) consist of more than one perspective on Messianic fulfillment. James would have to somehow account for these differences of tradition among these varying Jewish sects in order to provide an ample reason for his assumption that there was one type of Messianic prophecy that every Jew accepted. I’m sure the scholarly community would love to hear James’ solid data and source material for assuming this (I know I would).

Because James spends so much time on Isaiah, I’m going to spend a lot of time making my case more effective. After James takes some time to evaluate how trends in fundamentalist Christianity can differ so incredibly from a skeptic’s interpretations on Isaiah, James finally addresses the problem. Or does he? He writes “It is, at best, a passage that could be viewed as a prophecy with the benefit of hindsight, but scarcely seems to provide a sufficient basis for someone inventing a crucified Messiah.” This is a futile swatting of the hand towards the sun, as if by motioning at it, it will cease to lay down its smoldering rays. By simply ignoring the intertextual use of Isaiah for the creation of the narrative, James does not adequately present a case for his assumptions concerning it, nor does he deal with the fact that Jews did see Jesus’ death as laid out in Mark as a triumph. (We’ll come back to this below) This assumption may be the product of the fact that James specializes in historical Jesus studies and not ancient literary composition—that is to say, how ancient authors….authored.

To write any piece of literature in antiquity akin to the Gospels, in Greek, one had to attend Gymnasium. There is no way around this. What this means is that Jews who wrote anything at all in Hellenistic and Roman Palestine, Egypt, or elsewhere in these empires, had to be educated by Greeks in the Greek alphabet, in Greek rhetoric, in Greek literature and in Greek philosophy (of which the student could choose which school they wanted to align with). They would have to study under a grammatikos to become a philologos. There was no separate school for Jews, or Christians, or Romans, or Egyptians, if you wrote in Greek you had to attend the same Gymnasium; they were everywhere in the ancient Near East during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, including in Palestine. The students learned to write by using models, generally Homer or Euripides would be used as a means by which students would copy from and eventually create their own works utilizing these models as foundations for other works. This is why you see so many similar themes in ancient literature – those who wrote used other literature to develop and spring-board from when creating their own narrative.

That aside, Jews, like every educated Greek and Roman (the majority of antiquity could not read and were illiterate), had a wealth of literature to use and draw from. The Libraries in Rome and Alexandria for example were rumored to contain every type of literature in the history of written language, and I’m sure scholars were debating the historicity of the figure of Odysseus then as we are discussing the historicity of the figure of Jesus now. (In fact, we have records that they were doing just that) The Book of Tobit, for example, has been shown to be drawn almost exclusively from Homeric Epic and Genesis, along with some minor traditions (the Greek tragedy of the widowed bride who can never stayed married, for example). Job may seem to be dealing with the idea of suffering, but really it’s the feeling of abandonment; Job is authored by somebody in the Diaspora who is trying to explain his current situation the best way he can—through understanding of the scriptures pertaining to the story of Exodus where the Jews were in exile only to be given back everything in the end, and Abraham who was exiled and eventually was made the ‘father of all nations’; these stories are all explanations concerning the first exile in Jewish tradition, that of Adam and Even being kicked from Eden.

But let’s look at James’ perspective more closely. Is Isaiah “at best, a passage that could be viewed as a prophecy with the benefit of hindsight…?” Does it “but scarcely” seem to “provide sufficient basis for someone inventing a crucified Messiah?” Let’s compare!

Mark’s account of the crucifixion story is as follows: Jesus is brought before the Sanhedrin and demanded to account for his actions but he remains silent (Mark 15:1-5); Pilate offers to release one prisoner to the crowd, whomever they asked for, as he does at every feast. Pilate offers them to Jesus (as he suspects he has been tricked—clever fellow!) but the Sanhedrin gets them to release a different Jesus, Jesus Bar’Abbas (Son of the Father), and the crowd demands that Jesus, Son of Man (Where have we heard this phrase before? Ah, yes, Isaiah!), be crucified. Pilate obeys the will of the crowd out of fear (Mark 15:6-15); Jesus is mocked and denigrated, spit on and despised (Mark 15:16-20); They offered him wine mixed with myrrh but Jesus declines, and then they hang him (through crucifixion, stauros) and “cast lots,” and those to his left and right were robbers and thieves, murders by all rights (highwaymen who murdered pedestrians and took their things). Everyone mocked him, “Those who were crucified with him also reviled him” but he did not save himself (Mark 15:21-32); On the sixth hour a darkness comes over the land, Jesus shouts “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” and dies. At his last breath a centurion remarks, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:33-38) According to your perspective, this is clearly not invented from the Suffering Servant trope in Isaiah. But let us examine that chapter, shall we?

The Son of Man who is the Lords coming salvation for Israel will remain silent “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7); He is oppressed and “by…judgment he was taken away;” (Isaiah 53:8); The Son of Man must be killed for the salvation of Israel, wounded because of Israel’s transgressions. He must be the sheep to the slaughter. (Isaiah 53:5-6, 10-11); The Son of Man, the servant of God’s salvation for Israel, will be mocked and hated (Isaiah 53:2-3); God has preordained this all to happen, he has forsaken the Son of Man, “It was the will of the Lord to crush him; He has put him to grief,” (Isaiah 53:10). The whole foundation of the crucifixion is entirely founded upon this chapter – the whole of the Gospel of Mark is laden with hints to this very thing!

The beginning of Mark, for example, is clearly telling us he is interpreting scripture from Isaiah, this is why Mark tells is we are learning about the “good news.” (Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”) Mark goes out of his way to make us a promise from the start of his Gospel using a mixture of passages from where he is interpreting, “As it is written in (Isaiah – some manuscripts add this, Ed.) the prophet…”. This is not a coincidence, nor is Mark just trying to validate something after the fact. The narrative is a whole, cohesive unit, from start to finish. Jesus tells of his own demise, “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31)

Mark is not skirting the issue at all, but rather he is being very explicit about where he is pulling his crucifixion and resurrection narrative from. A full-knowing reader would understand. “And he said to them, “Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.” (Mark 9:12-13) “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” (Mark 9:31) “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.” (Mark 10:33-34) My name may reflect the doubter of the disciples, but it is James who is not so dissimilar from the character of the disciples in Mark, who “did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.” (Mark 9:32) Mark further cues the reader to Isaiah’s Son of Man concerning who he would be crucified with: “And they made his grave with the wicked” (Isaiah 53:9); “and was numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12)—Mark has two disciples ask Jesus if they can sit at his left and right, but Jesus responds, “but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared….For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:40, 45) The wicked are those who must be at his side, so Mark invents the scene with Jesus being crucified next to two murderers.

This all ties into James’ assumptions about fiction writing and my perspective (which he gets wrong or doesn’t understand) when he writes:

Be that as it may, it is unclear what the aim of such an author would be. Is it simply to tell a story of a failed Messiah?…The question that remains is why someone would invent a story from scratch about a figure, claim that this individual is the Messiah and that the story is good news, and then present the individual as failing to fulfill the expectations of such an anointed one.

James is re-uttering his ad hoc position about the failure of Jesus. But James ignores the fact that Mark does not consider it a failure. Mark is interpreting scripture here; he isn’t recounting historical events that would embarrass him. Mark makes a promise at the beginning of the narrative which James misses the whole point of! James writes that, “The beginning of the Gospel of Mark seems to exclude that option, since it speaks of “good news about Jesus the Messiah”, even as Jesus himself throughout the book tells people not to speak publicly about him as Messiah.” This skirts around the promise that Mark is making and James, in his historical understanding of the narratives, misses entirely. Every Gospel author sets up a promise at the beginning of the narrative (See my article on this here). Mark’s Gospel also makes a promise, that this is a story; it’s Isaiah’s “good news” of the “Savior Anointed”. The Gospel ends with the good news that Jesus has risen. That is Mark’s good news (God’s salvation, Jesus-Yahweh Saves, Savior-has come and died, rising again to save Israel as it was ordained to happen). Israel is saved through the grace of God by the sacrifice of the Son of Man. There is no failure in the narrative at all; it is clear and concise in the narrative. There is no evidence from the Gospels to assume the core of this story was historical. The whole narrative is built up from the start, fabricated, and each part of the narrative is needed for the completion to be “Gospel.”

Now, it may be that James is utterly embarrassed by his conclusions about what he assumes to be historical reality. Certainly if I claimed to be a Christian, I would be embarrassed by the failure of my historical Jesus too, especially if I thought him crucified, yet still considered him to be my Lord and Savior (as a Christian will do, by definition). James may be horrified and embarrassed and other modern Christians who think as James does obviously would be. But that does not mean Mark or any other early Christian thought that way. Paul certainly didn’t. The only story we have from antiquity that is written within the 100 years of Jesus’ supposed death (or since Paul’s own writing) is Mark’s story: The good news of Isaiah. We do not have a story about a failed messiah, not in Mark (as James keeps trying to insinuate) nor in early Christianity. It’s just an ad hoc argument designed to skirt around the actual evidence I provided earlier in this discussion and in my previous response to James’ assumptions. Unless, that is, James can present evidence for his position.

But let’s assume James is right. Let’s say Mark is aware of a story about a failed messiah, like Hillel or John the Baptist (assuming their existence historically, that is). Let’s recall all Mark had to go through to be educated in Greek. Mark would have spent all this time learning to write, using models to formulate new texts at Gymnasium, only to squander it all later on writing a single Gospel of poorly-written historical-fiction to an audience made up of mostly illiterates who would not be able to read his work. According to James, he would not have been using readily-available models (like the Septuagint or Homeric epic) to formulate plot and narrative and his whole story would be about a failed messiah who he believed to be the savior, although he was thoroughly embarrassed by him. Really, James? You feel this is a much better explanation of the available data than the interpretation of the data that I’ve given above? (By the way, Richard Carrier is writing a full refutation of the Criterion of Embarrassment in a contribution to a collection of essays I am editing)

But this brings us to his big question James asked: Why was it written? But this could easily be turned. If Mark is recounting some history, why would Mark want to write a story about a failed Messiah? If Mark doesn’t know about the failed resurrection of Jesus and thinks Jesus resurrected, why all this hype about the crucifixion being historical when the whole passion narrative would have been legend by the time Mark wrote? But let’s say I’m right. Mark wrote a narrative about the salvation of Israel. Just like every other Jewish fiction narrative written in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. It’s a narrative about people fearing abandonment by God, who has been there all along, preordaining the order of history; that is, he preordained Israel’s salvation with the Son of Man. Mark’s Gospel is a narrative about this, just as Job’s narrative is about salvation and redemption from what his friends deemed as exile from God. Jesus is the new Moses, the new David who, like David, has a triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey (also an allusion to Zech. 9), why he goes to the Mount of Olives to pray like David had done, why he must constantly flee from his enemies like David, why he must suffer and be hung from a tree (or be crucified) like David’s son Absalom – Israel’s false messiah. He is the true messiah-per the Gospel authors–and like David, he must save the Israelites from their Philistines (sin). Jesus is the Son of Man, but also David, and Moses, and Elijah the disgruntled prophet. Hence his name (Matt. 1:21). Jesus represents the suffering servant from Isaiah who must be oppressed and judged wrongfully, who will have a rich man in his death, and be killed with the wicked. He must make himself a sin offering, as in Leviticus. Pilate’s palace is the place of meeting where two lots are cast and Jesus must be put to death. Jesus represents the exiled Israel, looking for salvation. “Why has God forsaken me?” (Psalm 22) They want to know what is in store for them, why they feel so alone from God. This is Mark’s solution. It is truly an inspiring edification of Hebrew tradition. But it is not history. It is a part of a long tradition in Hellenistic-Jewish-Roman literature, not separate from it.

And why the double standard with the canonical Gospels? Why just stop at assuming a historical core to Mark? Why not assume a historical core to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, or to the Acts of Paul, or to the Hypostasis of the Archons, or to the Sophia of Jesus Christ (which is rewritten tradition taken from the Jewish Eugnostos the Blessed)? It’s a double standard with a decidedly Christian taint.

Additionally, I would like James to address the eponymic quality of names in Jewish tradition, and how Jesus Christ just so coincidentally fits that tradition. And how there are 12 disciples that just so happen to coincide with the 12 tribes of Israel, or to Moses 12 heads of the 12 tribes, that would be nice to have addressed. The problem with assuming historicity is that all of these very literary epochs are taken for granted. These nuances ignored and their function bastardized. One cannot see the forest between the trees, so to speak.

Finally, I see that James wants to bring up Paul. I wish James would read more carefully, because I already addressed Paul in my initial dialog with him. I have already explained that Paul is doing something not so dissimilar to Mark with his letters, i.e. interpreting scripture. You can read the full article here. I would like it if James did not restate his convictions a third time and just deal with the evidence.

Did Jesus Exist? A Response to James F. McGrath

Did Jesus Exist? A Response to James F. McGrath

By Thomas Verenna

Dr. James McGrath, a respected member of the scholarly community, has invited me to have a ‘bloggersation’ with him concerning an area of disagreement that we have pertaining to the historicity of the figure of Jesus and I am more than happy to do so. Some preliminary items must be understood from the start. First, Dr. McGrath is a tenured Associate Professor at Butler University and has held several teaching positions. I am not credentialed and have never held a teaching position. Dr. McGrath is a Christian ‘progressive’ (although I am not quite sure what that means) and I am an agnostic-atheist. Dr. McGrath has studied and taught in Romania. I have enjoyed a leisurely life in Portugal. We are very opposite people. In spite of that, it must never be assumed by the reader that I do not respect Dr. McGrath (I do). Nor should it be assumed that because we disagree that this conversation will be hostile and polemical (It will not be on my end and I do not think Dr. McGrath the kind of person to attack me personally over an argument). That will not stop me from being blunt in pointing out where I feel Dr. McGrath has erred and fallen into logical traps.

Moreso, it should be understood from the beginning that our two separate backgrounds and our different epistemological stances will be reflected in bias and assumption. But I would like Dr. McGrath to know that I will do my best to reserve my own bias, even to the point of accepting the possibility of being wrong. I am sure (although I do not wish to speak for him) that he will have the intellectual integrity to demand the same standards of himself. And I would like to start by asking him to not generalize, as he does in his opening of the very article he has asked me to review and reply too. He writes:

Anyone who has ever visited an atheist discussion forum will know that there are plenty of atheists and “freethinkers” who take it as a given that Jesus didn’t really exist…If you ask a professional historian whether Jesus existed, however, you will never receive an answer other than “yes”.

First, I must wonder why ‘freethinkers’ is “quoted” as if to imply “sarcasm.” I must also question why he limits this position to only atheists? I know many (modern) Gnostic Christians who hold to an ahistorical figure of Jesus. Several of these I know to even frequent atheist message boards because they cannot find acceptance on Christian boards that hold to a dogmatic perspective about Jesus.

Why, secondly, must Dr. McGrath create a false dichotomy laden with hyperbole? Does Dr. McGrath not know of Richard Carrier, Thomas L. Thompson, Robert M. Price, R. Joseph Hoffmann, and many other very notable historians who do not accept the oft-taken-for-granted historicity of the figure of Jesus? Is it because these scholars and historians also happen to be “freethinkers” that he disregards them? Perhaps because some of them are atheists they are not worth considering? I do hope that is not the case. I know from personal correspondence that Dr. McGrath does know of Richard Carrier and find it difficult to accept the fact that he would not have known of Richard’s position on the figure of Jesus from his reviews of Earl Doherty. (Not to mention his own upcoming book on the ahistoricity of the figure of Jesus!)

And why must one be content with just “asking a professional historian?” Where is the objectivity there? I find this position, the Appeal to Authority, to be an intellectually lazy response. To clarify, I do not think we should ignore the valuable information that historians can give to the world. As a historian myself, I can appreciate the research and work involved when writing a paper for submission or working on a monograph. However, it is one thing to accept the fact that historians have researched conclusions and quite another thing indeed to just accept what they say in all instances as researched conclusions. One should not be content with simply asking a historian their opinions because historians can still fall prey to the same intellectual laziness that Dr. McGrath suggests his readers should succumb too.

In other words, historians can just as easily submit to their own presuppositions and assumptions when coming to a conclusion that any other human being can. It is not only possible today, but as McGrath would readily admit, scholarship is plum-full of historical Jesus scholars willing to allow their own personal bias to determine interpretations of the historical figure of Jesus (if we assume such a person existed, that is). It is also a historical fact that many early eighteenth, nineteenth and even early twentieth-century historians and scholars did just that very thing (i.e. many stated opinion as if it were fact in every type and manner of publication from the period). This is why it is imperative that modern historical methods reflect rigorous standards and why modern studies in classical history are filled with other modern studies no earlier than thirty years old. (And that may even be pushing it a little)

It should also be recalled that at one point in the history of scholarship, scholars were unanimous in the historicity of the patriarchal narratives. Later, after much kicking and screaming, scholars accepted a ‘historical core’ of these traditions. Today, one would be hard pressed to find any scholar who would accept the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives in any form; at least as far as academia is concerned. So it is presumptuous of Dr. McGrath to assume that this position cannot be changed in the future and that “professional historians,” as Dr. McGrath phrased it, cannot be wrong. Dr. McGrath, in this instance, is an example to this rule not an exception.

What do I mean by that? Dr. McGrath’s article consists of nothing but a lot of complaints, none of which are useful or helpful to the dialog he seems to genuinely want to have. It does not help his position that he labels those who disagree with him “atheist fundamentalists” (whatever that means, since there is not a fundamental ideology behind atheism – it’s akin to suggesting that there are ‘fundamentalist bald men’ or ‘fundamentalist 15 year olds’). It also does not help that he degrades the integrity of those who he disagrees with by labeling them as anything but what he constitutes as ’serious historical’ investigators. How can he suggest that? It seems rather hyperbolic to do so.

Dr. McGrath is also very comfortable assuming consensus where there really is none to be had. He asks aptly, “…how can historians be so certain?” Scholarship is far from certain on almost everything related to the New Testament, Jesus included. From the dating of the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles and the pseudonymous epistles along with Revelations to the authorship of certain epistles and Gospel accounts, down to the very essence of Jesus’ character and Paul’s identity. Scholarship is so completely skewed on these issues, often times scholars seem to accept another scholars opinion in ‘good faith’ rather than taking the enormous amount of time to review all the evidence and straighten out problems that have been swept under the metaphorical rug since the days of the redaktiongeschichte schules started in Germany centuries ago. There is no certainty at all. There is only speculation, assumption, blind faith, and acceptance, all of which have been concealed under the guise of “certainty.” When examined fully and unabashedly, this concealment is lifted and can be seen for what it really is.

Dr. McGrath then makes a statement containing a rather glaring assumption; “[t]he answer lies in a simple fact that casts all serious doubt aside: the crucifixion.” But does it really cast “all serious doubt aside?” Dr. McGrath has just committed the fatal error of using circular reasoning to try to prove a point. Jesus is real because he was crucified. He was crucified because the Gospels say he was. The crucifixion is real because Jesus was real. It’s not only circular, but it begs the question while special pleading the end result. But this also negates early testimony about Jesus possibly being killed under Alexander Jannaeus in 100 BCE and that he was the teacher of righteousness from the Qumran texts or that he was killed by Herod Antipas instead of Pilate in the Gospel of Peter. These positions are put forth by scholars as much as the far-too-cliché perspective that Jesus was killed by Pilate. The fact that Paul suggests that Jesus was put to death by the heavenly Archon’s (not on earth by Pilate) has even troubled some scholars like Carrier and Price to deny historicity as part of the original Christian movement. Certainty about anything in the New Testament, particularly the crucifixion, is a dream.

Dr. McGrath follows this up with the more absurd statement “there was nothing that more automatically disqualified someone from consideration as God’s appointed savior than being tortured and executed by the foreign overlords who were ruling over his people and their land.” This is clearly not a realistic overview. Apparently Dr. McGrath is not familiar with Isaiah 52-53, which lays out the very foundation of Mark’s passion narrative, including the torture, crucifixion, and death by the hands of others–the very things that Dr. McGrath finds “automatically disqualifying.” (cf. Isaiah 52:14-15; 53:1-5, 7-11) Isaiah is not only the foundation of the death of Jesus, but Isaiah’s author is also relating to us his interpretation of how Mosaic law fits into his narrative; particularly his understanding of atonement of Aaron from Leviticus 16. The Son of Man sent by God must die and bear the burden of Israel’s sins. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb. The tent of meeting in the Gospel of Mark is Pilate’s Palace, and the lots (Jesus Bar’abbas – son of the father – and Jesus Christ – Son of Man) are cast. As described in Leviticus, Bar’abbas is released into the wilderness taking with him Israel’s sinful past, while Jesus must be sacrificed to atone for the sin which flees from the community. Jesus “poured his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). Mark tells us this is what is happening. He cues the reader to this when he writes “they cast lots to see what each would get.” A full-knowing reader would be aware of Mark’s allusion here and would have appreciated it.

Mark is interpreting for us scripture in the guise of Jewish fiction narrative. Dr. McGrath may not be convinced of the idea that “in attempting to invent [a messiah] from scratch, [they] would come up with the crucified Jesus,” but his opinion is irrelevant. Not only were the Jews knowledgeable of a crucified savior (Jesus, literally means “savior” or “Yahweh saves”), but it was the manner in which Yahweh promised his salvation to Israel through the prophets! And clearly this is how Mark felt. It was clearly accepted by Jews, because Christianity had to start somewhere and somehow (just saying “because Jesus started it” is not good enough). Clearly it was accepted because Christianity developed and exploded onto the scene. So regardless of whether or not Dr. McGrath feels it is “unimaginable,” the evidence would indicate that it was so imaginable that Mark imagined it and wrote about it. And what Mark didn’t make explicit, Matthew and Luke—certainly John—rectified this.

Dr. McGrath also ignores (perhaps not intentionally) the large tradition of eponym in the Jewish literary tradition. Moses (to draw out), Abraham (father of all nations), Isaac (laughter), Joseph (addition), Joshua (Jesus), Immanuel (God is with us), Job (Persecuted), and many others are nothing more than fictional creations of the whims of authors who were trying to get across edifying stories. These names reflect the characters role in the narrative, they are not random names given to historical characters. I find it interesting that Dr. McGrath, in an attempt to historicize the narrative of the Gospels once more, misses the interpretation of the author when discussing it in a recent blog article here. He writes:

It is, ultimately, the account in Mark (and what later Gospels do to it) that persuades me that Jesus was not buried with the honor his followers believed he was due. The reference to being anointed beforehand and to women seeking to do so after the fact seems to me to be sufficient indication that, if nothing else, anointing was left undone. And it seems from both Mark and John (albeit in different ways) that this fact troubled at least some Christians.

Dr. McGrath ignores the intent of Mark’s burial of Jesus. It is not to cover up some troubling reality the disciples had known about; it was a direct allusion to the Son of Man in Isaiah. Joseph of Arimathea was the rich man in his death (Isaiah 53:9), but there is a more rich understanding to be understood here. Something that Dennis R. MacDonald also points out and I agree with. Mark’s conclusion of his narrative is about thwarting expectations. It is not Simon Peter, who Jesus says to ‘pick up your cross and follow me’ who carries Jesus’ cross to Golgotha. It is another Simon, Simon of Cyrene, who does this. It is not Mary, Jesus’ mother, who anoints Jesus with oil or who mourns for him, or who visits the tomb the next day. It is another Mary, and the Mary of peace (Shalom), who visits the tomb, anoints Jesus’ feet and mourns his death. And it is not Joseph, Jesus’ father who tends to Jesus’ body and wraps him in linens. It is another Joseph who does this. Lastly, it is not Jesus, the risen Christ, who greets the women in the tomb. It is a boy, a reborn savior, who speaks of the Gospel to them. Mark thwarts our expectations, not to cover up a dreadful history or because of some embarrassing issue (this is an assumption that rests on no logical or rational foundation) but rather it is because he is creating a narrative the way all Jewish fictional stories are created. He is interpreting scripture and reinventing tradition. Even the idea of wrapping Jesus in linens is not necessarily a question of burial customs, but a direct connection Mark is making with the preparation for atonement in Leviticus 16:4. Spending time on questions concerning burials and how Jesus’ body was handled and dumped after crucifixion is completely useless and not helpful. It adds a whole layer to the narrative which was never there to begin with. This is the whole problem with trying to historicize a fictional story instead of trying to understand it in its literary milieu.

Finally, is it true what Dr. McGrath writes? Is it so that “[t]o deny Jesus’ existence would be to deny certainty about everything in the past?” One could not make a more grandiose statement founded on exaggeration if he were President Bush talking about the war in Iraq. No, denying the historical Jesus is not more threatening to historical methodology than denying the existence of a historical Adam and Eve, a historical Odysseus, a historical Priam, a historical Jason of the Argo, or a historical Serapis. Jesus is a notch in a tradition of euhemerized characters in history; a tradition which follows into modern history with Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan. It follows with King Arthur and Robin Hood. People love legend to the point where believing it is not difficult. That is something that Dr. Joseph Campbell was well aware of when he suggested, “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” Legends, full of literary trope, anecdote, philosophy and drama, pull the reader into a world where they are helpless against the words of the author. This is as true of Shakespeare as it is for J.D. Salinger as it is for Mark. Ancient cultures had no trouble at all fictionalizing their own histories; and in antiquity the 30+ Jewish sects that existed had no trouble forming their own interpretations and identifying with newly created traditions based off these interpretations. To ignore the possibility that Mark was doing just that—that he was formulating a story based off interpretations and reinvented traditions from scripture—is not only to take for granted the questions that deserve to be asked of such literature and according it a special place (for no reason), but that is truly somebody denying all certainty about everything in the past.

Refuting HelpMenderstandTheBible.org (Part 1 of 5)

Refuting HelpMenderstandTheBible.org (Part 1 of  5)

By Thomas Verenna

General Article Introduction

I often ignore apologists all together.  I just do not have the time to put up with the incredible ignorance, the delusion of authority, and the hyperbole in general that is inherent in every apologetic response to criticism.  It’s just so boring.  But when I came across this website, I felt a response was appropriate.  Especially considering the website’s name is helpmeunderstandthebible.org.  It was just too appropriate.  I didn’t read the title as if the website was going to help me; rather, I saw the title as a call for help. After all, who needs more help at understanding the Bible then apologists?

The introduction to the article on historical reliability states that “Skeptics have criticized the Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, as being legendary in nature rather than historical.”  The article then sets out, per the author Patrick Zukeran, to prove the opposite is true.  This refutation (perhaps the better word for it is ‘lesson’) will touch on every issue put forth by this website in the order that Zukeran uses. 

Part 1: Are the Gospels historically reliable?

Zukeran starts this section off with a challenge (apparently to himself), where he writes that the first step to prove the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts historically is to “account for the differences among the four Gospels.”  He lists all four, ascribing to each one their own special mission.  Mark, the gentile speaker, Luke the historical biographer, Matthew the Jewish interpreter, and John the brooding boyhood pal of Jesus.  No wonder they’re different!  How silly of us historians and New Testament scholars for not seeing this earlier.  They were all writing from completely different perspectives for different audiences!  And if you critical scholars out there were too daft to figure it out, Zukeran was goodly enough to provide us all with an example.

“Imagine if four people wrote a biography on your life: your son, your father, a co-worker, and a good friend. They would each focus on different aspects of your life and write from a unique perspective. One would be writing about you as a parent, another as a child growing up, one as a professional, and one as a peer. Each may include different stories or see the same event from a different angle, but their differences would not mean they are in error. When we put all four accounts together, we would get a richer picture of your life and character. That is what is taking place in the Gospels.” 

Ah ha!  Now I understand!  Luke is Jesus’ father, Matthew is Jesus’ son, Mark worked with Jesus in his carpentry business and John was just Jesus’ childhood pal who grew up with him in Nazareth.  Of course!  It’s so simple I should kick myself for not seeing it sooner.  After all, Zukeran is correct when he says that “If they were identical, we would suspect the writers of collaboration with one another.”  That just makes sense.  After all, asking four biographers, even ancient biographers, to get at least one fact about Jesus’ life correct is just too suspicious.  They would have clearly been collaborators.  And just because Zukeran assumes they all knew each other and they saw the same things doesn’t imply at all that they had to speak to each other about them.  And certainly after Jesus’ death and resurrection, they clearly stopped communicating with each other all together.  In fact, according to Zukeran’s logic, the four evangelists would have to have parted ways (around the same time), settled in four different locations around the known world, to write four completely separate accounts of Jesus’ life for one common goal (although it would have to mean that each author didn’t know or expect that the other three were doing the same) – which according to Zukeran, that goal was to give us a fuller and richer perspective about Jesus.  But this isn’t a suspicious incident at all!  And this is far more reasonable then four authors, from four different regions, at four separate times, using earlier Gospels to create new ones.  Only those pesky Gnostic heretics did that!

Unless, of course, Zukeran admits that they did discuss issues as they saw them, or that these evangelists (assuming as Zukeran does that they were witnesses to Jesus’ life) continued to communicate with each other after Jesus died and resurrected.  But this would put holes in his theory and his analogy.  After all, a father and brother documenting your life would probably still talk to each other.  It wouldn’t be as if they never sat down together and said, “Yeah, so I’m thinking about writing a book about Patrick.”  Of course they would, especially if you resurrected in front of them.  And chances are you would want to collaborate with those who also saw it just so that nobody else thought you were a complete nutter. 

Of course there are severe problems with this whole argument anyway.  We’re not talking about four Gospels that “focus on different aspects” of Jesus’ life.  We’re talking about four gospels written in different styles focusing on the same aspects.  Zukeran has clearly confused the style of writing with the contents of the individual Gospel accounts.  (It won’t be the first time Zukeran gets confused, but more on that later.)  Additionally, the four evangelists were not writing from four different perspectives, rather each evangelist (according to Zukeran they are all first hand eyewitnesses) was claiming to be a disciple of Jesus.  Perhaps the only disciple that may have the different perspective is Peter, simply because according to the Gospels, he saw things separately from the others at times.  But Peter never wrote a Gospel (and none of the canonical Gospels bears his name), ergo all four Gospel authors hold the same position.  So in essence it would be like four of your brothers writing four biographies about your life.  It would not be, as Zukeran pretends, a friend, or a father, or a brother, or a co-worker (all who would have had different experiences with you separate from the other three).  All of the evangelists claim to have the same relationship with Jesus and all were present for the same things.

And are these four Gospels just “different perspectives?”  No, and Zukeran is rather arrogant to assume his readers are that stupid not to recognize the slight-of-hand he just pulled.  Zukeran would have us believe that these differences are minor, as if John just left out something that Mark thought to put in, or that Luke was thorough enough to name everyone present at a certain event while Mark generalized with a plural noun.  Zukeran wishes that the errors and inconsistencies between the four Gospels were so minor and trivial.  Of course, anybody reading the Gospels can recognize the difference between a contradiction and an oversight.  The fig tree is an example that comes to mind almost immediately. 

In Matthew, Jesus has just finished cleansing the temple after a very triumphal entry into Jerusalem and he was already running away to Bethany to escape the guards who were looking to kill him.  He sleeps the night there and awakens the next day to head back into the city (apparently the guards had changed shift and didn’t pass along the message) and decides he is hungry along the way back.  Luckily for him, fig trees were abundant.  Unlucky for the fig tree, it was out of season.  Jesus is so infuriated that he had called but the tree had not answered, he curses the tree and it withers “at once.” (Matt. 21:19)   The disciples all marvel and even ask each other “How did the fig tree wither at once?” (Matt. 21:20)  With a little teaching that follows, this ends Matthew’s fig tree story.

In Mark, Jesus only makes it into the city before realizing he must leave again. (The triumphal entry must have taken hours out of the day.)  So, off to Bethany he goes to spend the night because it was “already late” (Mark 11:11), as apparently the money changers were no longer at the temple with tables for Jesus to throw over.  And as before, on their way to Jerusalem, Jesus became hungry; he had to build up his strength for all the table-throwing and scolding later on, it seems.  He approaches the fig tree, out of season, and curses the fig tree.  All of his disciples heard this curse. (Mark 11:14)  After a long day of cleansing the temple, throwing over tables, they again departed from the city to escape the plotting priests and scribes.  The next morning the disciples saw the fig tree withered away. (Mark 11:20)

Luke, that crazy historical biographer, seems to have completely forgotten this event as it is described in the other two accounts.  To Luke, there was never an incident with a fig tree at all; rather it was a parable all along. (Luke 13:6-9) In fact, the parable is told far from Jerusalem in Galilee, a full six chapters before the Triumphal Entry in Luke. More interesting is that Luke doesn’t seem to recall ever stopping by Bethany during his stay in Jerusalem with Jesus.  It isn’t until the Ascension that Luke, the biographer, seems to recall Bethany from his travels.      

John is not only clueless of the withering of the fig tree, but he doesn’t even recall the parable!  Instead, John remembers Jesus calling Nathanael from under a fig tree (John 1:43-48), but beyond that, he is completely ignorant of any cursing, withering, fig tree incident!  But I thought I read in Matthew that all the disciples marveled?  Mark suggests that all the disciples saw the fig tree withered the next day.  Something isn’t adding up here! 

This seems to be more than an oversight and this is just one of the many contradictions that could be brought to light.  Yet, according to the evangelists, they were all disciples, who saw the same things, and recount that every one of them saw the same things within their own text! (It doesn’t say, for instance, that “Only a few marveled” or “Most of the disciples saw the tree withered”—the evangelists went out of their way to use absolute words like “all” or “every” so it was clear to the reader that there was not one person who missed the event)  Yet clearly there are four different stories, very separate, and all unique.  This is a clear example of authorial intent at play, not memory recall. 

So is Zukeran correct when he writes that “the four Gospels give us a complementary, not a contradictory, account?”  Not in the least.  What we have are in fact four contradictory accounts which complement the single theological issue: That issue being that God will call for you whenever it suits him, out of season or not, so be prepared to “bear fruit” and answer his call.  The fact that this theological issue is presented in four different ways is only evidence that each Gospel author changed the narrative in a manner that better suited them—not, as Zukeran claims, because they represent a core historical event.  But even on the off-chance that it were a historical event, Zukeran would have to decide just which event was the most historical tradition, something that is not only impossible to determine but irrelevant.  It is irrelevant because he would then have to cope with the fact that three out of the four Gospels got the story wrong on purpose, out of incompetence, or because they just didn’t know about it.  Then Zukeran would be faced with an even more frustrating question.  If this event is so skewed and altered, how can he be so sure that the rest of it isn’t as well?  He may comfort himself in the fiction that this is the only contradiction between the four evangelists, but where does that leave his whole theory that the Gospels do not give contradictory accounts? 

Are the Gospels historically reliable?  Absolutely not.  Can it be shown that they contradict each other?  Absolutely.  So much for proving the reliability of the Gospels!  What’s next?  Oh right!  It’s the dating of the New Testament writings.  This one should be entertaining!   More to come later.

Richard Carrier’s Vexations

A friend and colleague of mine, Richard Carrier, is like me writing a book concerning the ahistoricity of the figure of Jesus, although we are both taking different directions to reach a similar conclusion.  One of his more recent blogs contain some of his frustrations with New Testament studies and scholars that I have shared on more than a few occasions!

In this brilliant article, he gives just one example of his frustrations in researching the data for this book.  He writes:

[N]ot only is there no consensus, but there are dozens of positions, and arguments for each [Dating the contents of the New Testament and identifying their authorship and editorial history-Ed] are elaborate and vast. It was only after over a month of wasting countless hours attempting to pursue these matters to some sort of condensable conclusion that I realized this was a fool’s errand. I have changed strategy and will attempt some sort of broader, simpler approach to the issues occupying my chapter on this, though exactly what that will be I am still working out. It will involve, however, a return to what historians actually do in other fields, which New Testament scholars seem to have gotten away from in their zeal to make sense of data that’s basically screwed in every conceivable way. For when it comes to establishing the basic parameters of core documents, I have never met the kind of chaos I’ve encountered in this field in any other subfield of ancient history I’ve studied. Elsewhere, more often than not, either the matter is settled, or no one pretends it is.

He offers his readers one example, in this particular instance the example comes from the fact that there is no set consensus about the terminus ante quem and the terminus ad quem for the composition of Matthew. The first reference to Matthew is generally assumed to be from that of Ignatius, but so many New Testament scholars have taken for granted or glossed over the severe problems with using Ignatius to date Matthew.  Richard not only provides a lengthy expose into the problems of dating Matthew in a humorous manner, he uncovers more dirt neatly tucked under the rug my New Testament scholarship along the way.  This foray into the grinder of New Testament studies is worth the read.

You can check it out here:  http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2008/09/ignatian-vexation.html

Jew and Greek Then and Now

Jew and Greek Then and Now

By Thomas Verenna

The book I am currently working on, even though dealing primarily with Gospel and Epistle exegesis, is really not about origins at all. It is a book on culture, assimilation and compromise. I spend a lot of time discussing authorial intent, knowing full well the writers themselves, even Paul, had formal schooling as Greeks, even though they were in fact Jews all along. This project has been more than just a look into the past; it has opened my eyes to the present in new ways. Assimilation into new cultures, simply put, is a double-edged sword.

What I mean to say is regardless of intent or motive behind someone’s own decision to assimilate, a compromise must always be made. The dynamic of Jew and Greek in antiquity are the most extreme case of such compromise. The Torah lays out strict rules, many of which (whether by redaction, late authorship, or coincidence) conflict with Hellenistic lifestyle. The observance of certain Greek feast days, acknowledging other gods and religion, eating certain foods, wearing certain clothing, and lest we not forget,*ahem* “mingling with a perverse spirit.”

Even prior to the Hellenistic age, so much of Jewish culture seems to stem from assimilation into previous cultures, whether it is from conquest or even the willful choice to move into the Diaspora because of better living conditions. Much of the Hebrew Bible is literary trope developed from other ancient Near Eastern cultures like the Assyrians, Babylonians, or the Hittites. The early polytheistic and henotheistic past of Judah and Samaria reflect Canaanite pantheons. The Sumerian flood epic of Gilgamesh has imbedded itself into the composition of the Jewish version rather deeply.

During the Hellenistic period, Jews seem to have been confronted by the great literary prowess of the Greeks at that time. This does not imply the Jews did not have their own literary traditions; rather they were confronted by a new set of traditions, including new genre styles and epics, philosophy, plays, new sings which probably contained rather dissonant sounds that amused and entertained and caused curiosity in the People of the Book so used to singing a different king of hymn. I would have to imagine that is why the Jewish Diaspora grew so immensely during the Hellenistic period, with large populations in regions where it had become a diverse melting pot of ideas, music, literature, art and philosophy.

Jews everywhere made compromises in their religious practices, their faith, and their traditions to better assimilate themselves within this ‘other’ ancient culture, to the very extent that even the pros most hostile to the idea of assimilation are in fact written in Greek! What does this mean? Jews that had the ability to write and read in Greek had to attend a Greek school for years to learn from a Grammatikos. In other words, they had to assimilate into the culture in order to be able to write against it. This is what I mean by double-edged sword.

This has led me to question the whole process of assimilation and literature in antiquity in general. But, more recently, it has challenged me to examine my own assimilation into the culture I have been raised in. I am an American, but originally my family line stems from two places: Sicily and the Ukraine.

On my Italian side, my grandfather has only maintained a very limited number of Italian traditions (my favorite among them is when the family gets together on Sundays to eat dinner together). My grandfather, however, was raised as a first generation American, in a household where both English and Italian were spoken. He lived in an Italian neighborhood in Jersey and had Italian friends (and to this day they always hang out together in their old hang-outs). Now approaching 90, he can barely recall Italian words—but it is not because he is old and senile. Conversely, he walks briskly, thinks sharply, and lives normally. But he made compromises.

On my mother’s side, the Ukrainian side, my Grandmother was a first generation American as well. Her mother, who I knew only a short time and affectionately as Baabaa, spoke Ukrainian and had escaped the country only narrowly missing Communist Russia. My Grandmother had several sisters, and all them used to, at one point, speak Ukrainian. My mother, with her four brothers, grew up in the 1970’s culture that nearly eradicated their desire to participate in the many Ukrainian traditions my Grandmother and their aunts still knew of and kept. They were so thorough in their apathy towards these traditions that my Grandmother, today, barely recalls enough Ukrainian to speak to her sisters in it. She had made compromises.

America is no place for Italian or Ukrainian traditions anymore—only American traditions. And the sad thing is, as Americans, we are damn proud of this. We as a country despise the fact that there are multi-lingual menus at restaurants. We cannot stand that little extra packet of instructions on an Ikea lamp set in French or Spanish. And just where the hell do those Europa’s get off calling soccer “football” anyway? But it goes even further than just traditions and language in this country. Just like the Jews in antiquity, Christians and Jews today must find a way to cope with a culture that is highly structured on the pillars of greed, covetousness, lust and consumerism.

How does a Christian reconcile the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels to the rich man on the road? How can a Christian give up all they own, to the point of living in a box, in a country consumed by capitalism? How can a Christian follow the means of community found in Acts, the idea of communal living, in a country where having your own property is not just a ‘right’ but a status quo, even a status symbol? How can a Christians ‘love thy neighbor’ when that neighbor won’t shut up that damned dog from barking at 3am after repeated talks about it?

Just the same, how does a Jew not work on the Sabbath when we live in a culture where our days off fall on weekends and where clubs bump some great hits on Saturday night? How can a Jew get around the fact that some of the best outfits come in polyester blends? And just what are you supposed to do about hotdogs and ribs, anyway (especially during football and baseball season)? Sure there are 100% cotton clothes, kosher foods, and people you can hire to turn on the lights for you on a Saturday, but all of these things are pretty ‘unAmerican’ by the standards of pop-culture. Compromises are made.

And yet, I’m not writing this observation in Italian or Ukrainian (if I could even recall any Ukrainian, that is). I’m writing this all in English, which I learned from what seems like 75% of my life sitting at a desk in an American classroom in an American school where people go to become assimilated into American culture. And even though I find this assimilation depressing, I realize its necessity. I love being an American, although I am insanely jealous of Europeans (who managed to swing by the last 8 years without being turn inside out by a Bush Administration).

When the average person talks with me about history, I often find that they don’t think about these little intricacies. The see history as a bunch of tattered buildings, a grave stone or two, a battlefield with a MacDonald’s plopped right in the middle of where Pickett’s Charge took place. It is so incredibly easy to ignore the fact that what history is, what it means to you and I, are people. What we are talking about are people. American’s are reliving the world of the Hellenistic Diaspora. We are the Greek and the Jew. And just like them, we too make compromises. Hopefully we can manage to save a little bit of our own traditions along with maintaining the new (old) ones.

Calvin on Academia

My favorite Calvin & Hobbes strip of all time.

Mythicism, Minimalism, and its Detractors

By Thomas Verenna

Mythicism and Me

The term ‘mythicism’ has more than one use. It can refer to the mythicizing of a historical figure or it could refer to its opposite, euhemerizing, which is the process of forcing the mythical figure into history. It has been referenced in works which deal with discussions of mythology, mythological concepts, and mythological characters. But the term itself is hardly understood, and when it is read, often it is misunderstood. (Which, perhaps, is worse then having no understanding at all?) It has also been applied to the position of the denunciation of Jesus’ figure as historical. It is this later instance in which I will be leading this discussion, in a very similar manner to that of Philip R. Davies and his brilliant article defending his position against insults far worse then those I have yet received.

I wish to start out with a grievance. In the case of a historical Jesus, it should be made clear that we are not talking about a ‘myth’ at all, but rather as the folklorist would scold us on, we are discussing ‘legend.’ The difference is two-fold. First, mythology is more concerned about origins (generally worldly origins) than it is about characters. Sometimes a legend can contain trace elements of myth. For example, in common literature, the story of the spider biting Peter Parker’s hand is a myth – it is the origin story of Spiderman, who is the legend. Another way to understand the difference between a mythological story and a legendary story is to compare the book of Genesis, which is mythology, to the Gospel of Mark. Mark has very distinct traits that Genesis lacks.  Instead of focusing on several thousand years, or even a few generations, Mark focus’ on one life, over a span of what seems like a short time, until the death of his character Jesus when the story ends abruptly. Mark does not concern himself with origins of the universe, he does not even have an origin story for Jesus, who just appears out of nowhere (in a very Marcion manner) in his opening chapter. You can see this sort of legendary creation in the stories of Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan, both of whom have no real origin story (originally).

The second instance in which myth and legend differ is the manner in how the story is told. Legendary stories use four specific attributes in their story-telling: (1) interpreting, reinventing, or challenging common folklore, (2) interpreting, reinventing, or challenging stereotypes, (3) use of tropes or metaphors, (4) contains moral teachings. Myth, on the other hand, does not need to focus on these four aspects. The necessity of moral teachings in the origins of man is not always easy to ascertain, because in early ancient Near Eastern myths, it is the Gods – not man – who can’t get along. Often times it is the God’s folly that leaves man in their predicament with no real way to atone. Ironically, it is the development of legendary stories where you see the origin of atonement take shape. In the story of Moses, it is he who comes to atone the sins of Israel and releases them from their imprisonment, symbolic of the fall of man, and brings them into a renewed covenant with God as Abraham had done with Yahweh in Genesis. What follows from Genesis is a continuous development of legend, not myth, where understanding the plight of mankind becomes a way to teach ethics as well as the means by which to explain the folklore of Genesis.

This misrepresentation (that myth and legend are synonymous)–made by early scholars of the Redaktiongeschichte Schule of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries–has only aided in the continuous misrepresentation of mythicists and the various mythicist positions. It often leads people to assume that Jesus mythicists are comparing Jesus to, say, Horus—an Egyptian god vital to their origin traditions. In fact, the truth of the matter is that Jesus is more like the Jewish legendary traveler—in the purely Odyssean manner—Tobit. In a large sense, mythicists are really legendists, but like all originally-derogatory labels, it is ‘mythicist’ that we are stuck with. I do use the term to describe my understanding of the Jesus legend, but perhaps like Philip R. Davies and his use of minimalism, in my mind I often imagine saying it with quotes surrounding the word.

So then, what is a mythicist? To be clear, mythicism is only defined by the denouncement or even skepticism of the historicity of the figure of Jesus. What this means, plainly, is that if you do not hold that there was a man named Jesus by which the Gospel stories were based on, you are a mythicist. There is no more to it than that. Suffice it to say, the methods, theology, interpretations, criticisms and beliefs of individual mythicists are vast and complex and often times conflicting! (We’ll get into this below) So now with that behind us, it is time to move onto what mythicists are often accused of and expose the flaws with these criticisms.

Mythicism and Religion, Old Scholarship, and the Appeal to Popularity

The major criticisms I receive are often not about my research. In fact the most heard argument against mythicism is that it’s a minority opinion. This is never said matter-of-factly, but often with the fiction that the mythicist is a “dogmatist.” (G. Vermes, 2008 ) I say ‘fiction’ because there is no inherent dogmatism in accepting mythicism. This can be observed simply by reading mythicist material. If there were some sort of dogmatism, you would expect everyone to have the same perspectives and viewpoints, often out of ignorance and appeals to popularity of particular positions (which you find so often in scholarship, today), and it would have been something taught through education of some sort, passed down from mentor to student, forming some sort of “school of thought”, like the Bultmann school or the Käsemann school, or the much despised (by me) neoAlbrightian school. So let’s review the data.

Acharya S is a mythicist, but many know my disagreements with her are quite extensive and we differ greatly. She willingly admits to submitting to some “new age” thinking (which I find shocking and downright scary), claiming, of course, that it does not influence her work (which I do not believe). In terms of her mythicism, I might go so far as to say she is the most ‘dogmatic’ (although I would never say it without clarification). I say this due to the fact that she does not sway opinions easily, and often holds onto concepts (like Horus being the sun-god, who was crucified, resurrected after 3 days, has 12 disciples, etc,…) in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (a read through the ANET’s Egyptian mythology section is more than enough to refute a large majority of her claims outright).   She has gotten better over the course of time, but she isn’t there yet.  When reading her books, I would advise caution and a thorough review of her claims in modern, up-to-date resources instead of her grossly out-of-date material…Gerald Massey, Dorothy? Really? *sigh* (I would also add that many scholars in the field associate mythicism with this type of dated scholarship–that is what worries me and what I hope the Jesus Project will rectify by allowing mythicists with credible perspectives to be able to voice them openly in a critical community)

Bob Price and I are friends, so perhaps people think I subscribe to everything Bob says, but Bob will openly admit we have disagreements, especially on the subject of Paul and the Epistles, their value, and their dating—as well as how intact they are, what redactions occurred in them, and what should be dismissed entirely. However unlike Acharya, I find a lot of Bob’s ideas compelling and generally correct. His discussion about Marcion and the development of Luke-Acts in his book The Pre-Nicene New Testament is very interesting and he is probably onto something.  His perspectives on the development of the Q document (if there indeed had been such a thing) deserve to be taken seriously.

Earl Doherty also comes to mind.  While I do not agree with his criticism of the Jesus Project, overall I  enjoy what it is Earl has to say.  This does not imply that I agree with it all. At one point Earl had presented a case for removing Galatians 4:4, which I do not agree with (it seems to fit the context perfectly). He has also made some suggestions about redating some of the Gospels to a later period which I also find unnecessary and unhelpful (for the moment I remain unconvinced, but am open to it if it were argued more convincingly), aside from Luke-Acts which I do agree came late, probably early-mid second century CE.  So any attempt to link my ideas with Earl, despite my respect for him, would be an attempt founded on ignorance.

There are only a handful of mythicists who I would say I consider role models (those who have helped shape my interpretation of the Gospels and epistles).  Thomas L. Thompson and Richard Carrier have been very friendly, thoughtful guides on my journey through the available data.  Both Richard and Thomas feel as I do,;that the Gospels represent narrative.  This narrative had been created by authors whose intent was not to deceive but  to educate through mimetic edification (or as Dennis MacDonald would put it–emulation).  The three of us argue that Paul  and the Gospel authors interpreted Jewish scripture to create their Jesus’.  All three of us agree that somewhere along the way, the edifying character of Jesus (savior) became euhemerized into history.

I do not see any sort of dogmatic approach to this subject. Particularly when examining the extrabiblical evidence. Not everyone agrees that Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius are forgeries, for example. Some have presented the case for this; I do not agree (as far as I know, Richard and Thomas don’t agree either). Unlike the opposite side of the coin, those who have accepted the historical Jesus have done so without regards for the direct questions asked in opposition to it.  When confronted with alternate interpretations of the date, appeals are often made. This, to me, is dogmatic.

Dogmatically, they claim that Jesus had to have existed. And accordingly they state—true to their dogmatic convictions—that “no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus.” (M. Grant, 1977; O. Betz, 1968) This is not just hyperbole, but a fiction. Are there serious scholars who postulate the non-historicity of Jesus? There certainly are. Some of them are named above. I would doubt anybody familiar with scholarship over the past forty years would suggest that Thomas L. Thompson is not a serious scholar. If anybody has read the works of Richard Carrier and Robert Price, they would not be able to make such a remark. So not only is this a fiction but also an Argument from Ignorance. In fact, I would like to flip this on its head and say that no historical Jesus scholar has seriously examined the case for ahistoricity, often times simply appealing to the maxim left by Bultmann over fifty years ago (R. Bultmann, 1941).

And speaking of Bultmann, it is interesting to note that unlike mythicists, the historical Jesus scholars of the Jesus Seminar vein  often do belong to schools of thought.  What one finds is that their arguments and perspectives reflect either Bultmann or Käsemann, some even resemble Albert Schweitzer. And people suggest that mythicists follow old and outdated sources? Yet all three quests are generically based off of the first, initiated by Strauss some two-hundred years ago. Indeed, each new generation of historical Jesus scholar seems to march to the same tune. I recall the first quest failing as a result of the scholars looking down the well of history, catching their own reflections, but thinking they saw Jesus. The same is true with Bultmann, Käsemann, and Bornkamm. The same is true for J.D. Crossan, Marcus Borg, and Bart Ehrman (as much as I respect them). All of them resort to insults instead of critiques. Bultmann stated that you’d have to be insane to think Jesus never existed without offering any argument or position as to why. Paul Maier has suggested that it is only those with the “shallowest of intellects” who do not accept historicity. Vermes claimed that “dogmatists” are the only ones who doubt that Jesus existed. And recently, Bart Ehrman stated basically the same thing that Michael Grant had said some 31 years ago. These are insults, not arguments. These are reactions. These sorts of statements are more akin to defence of dogmatism than the reasoned, often well-cited remarks of mythicists like Richard Carrier, Bob Price, and Thomas L. Thompson.

I would also note that an Appeal to Popularity does not work as well as some scholars would like. This is yet another fiction. By suggesting that “everyone believes Jesus existed” one is saying that there is an agreement. But really there isn’t. The reality is that the historical Jesus quest is far from uniform. Sure, everyone keeps asserting that Jesus was a historical person – but nobody can seem to find him anywhere! They’ve looked so hard they can’t understand why, in the end, the third quest to find Jesus has failed in the same way the first two before it had.

J.D. Crossan, an Irishman growing up under Imperialist Britain, can only see his Jesus as a Jew, growing up under an Imperialist Rome. Bart Ehrman, an agnostic-atheist who was formerly an evangelical, can only see Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher teaching about the end of the world. Marcus Borg and Shelby Spong, rather liberal Christians, can only see Jesus as a religious revolutionary and reformer. Luke Timothy Johnson, a very conservative Christian, can only see Jesus as the Christ of the Gospels. Geza Vermes, a Jew who became a Catholic priest wants to paint his Jesus as a religious zealot, perhaps even a Pharisee.

Each scholar would disagree with another on where exactly the historical Jesus fits into their Gospel and where the legendary Jesus takes his place. Nobody can decide where and to what extent the authors incorporated the historical teachings instead of the ‘kerugmatik’ ones. Why does this happen? Because the assumption they are making can only be made at the expense of taking for granted a large amount of data, ignoring very important emulations and allusions, and in their place, making larger assumptions.

My Purpose: Understanding the Authors of the Bible

I cannot speak for other mythicists, since all mythicists are different in purpose and intent.  Each of us comes to different conclusions based on our interpretation of the data.  In a manner that will hopefully bring about intellectual dialog, I will briefly lay out here my own interests as a mythicist. My position deals with a few questions: “Why were the Gospels written?”, “By whom were they written?”, “What genre do they best represent?”, “What is the author trying to tell us, especially if this is not history or memory recall?” and so on. I am not concerned with making assumptions about the author’s intent, nor am I primarily interested in presupposing the genre came to be ex nihilo.

I am not impressed by the argument that the Jesus of the Gospels is unhistorical (as those scholars of the Jesus Seminar seem to be). I need to know why that Jesus is unhistorical; I want to puzzle out why the authors changed, adjusted, or otherwise ignored history, purposefully changed other Gospel versions while creating their own.  Who was their audience and what did the authors and the audience really believe? I am not content with just accepting the fact that this Jesus is a legend – I want to know why he was created as a legend. It is easy to assume that the character of the Gospels is based off some historical person, but what does that really answer? What can that tell us? The blunt fact is that it can tell us nothing, because that person does not exist; not in the evidence we have nor in the literature we possess. So why assume that there is some hidden Jesus, that nobody has ever seen, and our evidence does not support, when clearly the authors of the Gospels were not interested in that Jesus. They went out of their way to show us a Jesus that was of their own minds, their own interests. Why? These are the questions I am concerned about.

I approach the questions with a love for the literature, not (as has been suggested) a premature prejudice against it. Nor do I pretend that there are no historical incidents in the Gospel narratives, even if those incidents are often inaccurately dated (perhaps purposefully, not out of ignorance or incompetence as so many historical Jesus scholars would claim) or placed in the wrong chronological order, or even placed in a completely different context that would never have happened in antiquity (The Sanhedrin meeting on Passover eve, for example; or Pilate letting the Jews push him around-a far cry from the murderous, cruel character described to us by Josephus). However, I feel these incidents play a part on the narrative, as sets—a backdrop like in a play—where the narrative can unfold. Much in the same way that Ithica is the home of Odysseus the craftsman and carpenter, where he, as king, is no longer welcome because of the suitors that plague his household, so too is Nazareth the ‘set’ of the story where Jesus, carpenter, (or carpenter’s son) is no longer welcome, outcast by his own people by the decadence that plagues his Israel. You will not find a critique of this position in any book or article by a historical Jesus scholar. My detractors are happy assuming my position rather than reading it or asking me questions about it. Addressing the issues seems to be the furthest thing from their minds.