You have many questions I certainly am not able to answer to all. I can only give some comments, which may be relevant (or not):
as I wrote, there is always space for speculation and criticism. You are free to doubt, nothing wrong in it, but please remember that also the claims of critical scholars are mostly just opinions or speculation. There are not enough of facts to prove any hypothesis. We can use our rational thinking and speculate about the use of words, importance of differences in the texts or the lack of supporting texts outside the Christian circles. These may give hints but making strong conclusions based on such hints is mostly unwarranted. You either believe or do not believe something, or do not make any strong conclusions at all.
There are differences in the dating of the scriptures. Some scholars support late writing, some early. I think that those suggesting earlier dates are more convincing than those suggesting late dates. Therefore I assume that at least the earliest writings were circulating among believers when there were still living eyewitnesses.
Many believers moved between areas, partly because of trade and comparable reasons, partly because of persecutions. I have read that the gospel spread mostly with these ordinary people, apostles or other full-time servants played a smaller role. The Hebrew (more traditional) believers among the jews of Jerusalem were probably partly isolated after they moved from Jerusalem to the small town on the other side of the river (Pella or something like that, I do not remember the name of the town now) but the hellenistic jews moved a lot and must have received news and heard stories from the other believers they met.
Believing the stories about Jesus is a matter of faith. There were no reporters writing headlines or historians following what happened in a distant part of the empire. Even if someone capable of writing heard about Christ, it was a matter of opinion how to interpret the stories about the ‘miracle maker’. Jesus was crucified as the king of jews and was therefore a suspicious person. Authorities were concerned about the unity of the empire and would not have liked positive writings about the ‘rebel’. ‘Would not have liked’ was close to getting a capital punishment. Most writings about Jesus were probably burned during persecutions - the uncertain part is the word ‘most’, burning is a fact.
The saving act of Jesus was a process. Death on the cross was only one part of it. The early followers did not stress the death when telling the gospel, they were more interested about the incarnation and resurrection. Incarnation and Jesus living the life of a sinless human, with the associated acts, were important because they showed that Jesus was truly a human, and could be the representative of Israel and humanity in the process, following the thinking in Isaiah 53. The miracles showed how the kingdom of God was present where Jesus was. Resurrection and what followed was important because these showed that God was involved, death was defeated and God accepted what had happened. In temple rituals, atonement did not occur when the animal was killed, it happened after the high priest brought the blood to the Holy of Holiest and God accepted the blood of the sacrifice and gave forgiveness. Christian thinking followed the Hebrew thinking in that the true Temple and Holy of Holiest were not on earth but in heaven. Resurrection was a sign of Jesus going to the heavenly Temple with blood that could bring forgiveness. These are among the reasons why both the incarnation and life of Jesus and the resurrection were considered very important for salvation.
I asked them to show how many assumptions go into thinking “eyewitnesses controlled the truth.” It is too simplistic and actually contradicted by a wealth of information. Here is a quote I read from Allison today that is also relevant and speaks against such a view:
Legends do not courteously wait to arrive until their protagonists are long dead and gone.80 Fables about Alexander the Great circulated from the beginning.81 The Syriac life of Simeon Stylites was composed within fourteen years of Simeon’s death, by a monk or monks living where Simeon lived,82 and yet it often stretches credulity.83 Legends trailed Sabbatai Sׂׂevi before his apostasy.84 George Washington died in 1799, and a few months later Mason (“Parson”) Weems published a hagiographical account of the first President in which history and edifying romance are inextricable.85 Davy Crockett was, in part because of his own self-promotion, half a myth already to his contemporaries.86 That the angel Moroni revealed the whereabouts of the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith was part of Mormon’s foundational myth from day one. While the Sioux warrior, Red Cloud, was climbing the tribal hier- archy, rumors told of his ability to fly, to shape shift, to talk to animals, and to be in two places at once, and he appears to have done little to squelch such claims.87 And astounding tales surrounded Rabbi Schneerson long before he expired.88 “It is,” observed Renan, the greatest of errors to suppose that legendary lore requires much time to mature; sometimes a legend is the product of a single day.”89 Renan may have been wrong about much, but he was not wrong about this. “The answer to the question of ‘how long do legends take to form?’ is best answered with another question: ‘how long does it take to re-tell a story?’”90
I don’t agree with the former part fo that. As for the latter I don’t think ancient history tries to “prove” anything. It works in terms of probability.
And most scholars take a middle of the road position. Mark ca. 70 and Matthew 80-100 and Luke 80-110 is the middle position. The late position is pushing Mark to the end of the 1st century and the other two gospels into the second century
If you dig deep to understand one among the multitude of hypotheses proposed by scholars, you find speculative assumptions, leaps over poorly defendable gaps in the logic and sometimes an attitude that ‘this must be true because I think it clearly is’. If you look just at facts, most of the hypotheses are just speculation and opinions.
What seems to be a repeating pattern is that someone proposes a hypothesis in a doctoral dissertation or book and thereafter, other writers write about the hypothesis as it would be proven in the original publication. This is the way how speculative hypotheses turn into accepted ‘truths’ in theology.
If you search for justification of the differing opinions, you find claims such as ‘this is so advanced theology (or advanced church organization) it cannot be early’ and 'the writer (or Jesus) could not know in advance what will happen, therefore the text must be written after the events that were ‘prophesized’ '. For example, could Jesus tell about the destruction of Jerusalem before it happened? If your answer is ‘no’, then the writing of what Jesus said must have happened after the destruction of Jerusalem.
I believe that Jesus could tell about what will happen in the near future, so I find the claims supporting late writing poorly justified. I think that the justifications for early writing are more convincing and many texts were written before the destruction of Jerusalem. The latest was perhaps the Revelation. The church history book ‘Story of Christianity’ suggests that the exile to Patmos happened during the persecutions of Domitianus who reigned between the years 81-96.
I read this last night, and think it ties nicely into what I said about the reasons for knowing Jesus to be Lord:
“The virtuous exercise of faith is necessary not because of the absence of evidence. Rather, faith is helpful as a check to the irrational influences that threaten to dislodge a religious believer’s justified religious convictions.” John DePoe Debating Christian Religious Epistemology
When Jesus spoke about how blessed would be those who believe and have not seen him, my best guess is that he was referring to the work of the Spirit that John referred to as an anointing that requires no explanation.
I am not advocating blind faith and would like to point out the opposite extreme is also bad: punishing people for getting facts wrong is absurdly idiotic and immoral. The Holy Spirit has to play a role but what is my role? How much am I involved and why isn’t everyone saved?
I don’t see how grounding faith in historical apologetics or correct doctrine is even remotely a good idea. Let’s just limit God to the educated, scholarly erudites who agree with me .
I’d prefer to understand faith a bit different and leave is open as even being a bit mysterious since I can’t explain why my experience draws me to God while others are not drawn? Am I good while they are evil? Am I more open than them? Does God just love me more? I am not comfortable with any of those and I don’t accept election. I don’t think God elected some and not others (He desires all to be saved). I also don’t think we really earn salvation through good deeds or through intellectual correctness. This creates a bit of a pickle.
So I don’t agree with a baseless view of faith but I will say if a person has their faith entirely built on historical apologetics, it is a baseless faith. It’s built on sand. Sheer hubris anchored to the awesome intellectual power of the individual, rather than the saving grace of the Holy Spirit.
Faith is also one of those words that is immensely hard to define. I’m not even sure so can though I somehow just know what it means. But that does manse communicating about it precarious if we approach it from from perspectives.
Sure. That’s why I found the Acts passage so meaningful. There is a reference to the OT, plausible historical arguments, and the present work of the Holy Spirit.
As for the other questions you raise, I find some answers in the Bible, but I do look forward to bringing the questions to Jesus one day and expect to be surprised. I hope to see you there and we can have a good chat about all of it face to face.
Some questions, like how in the world God’s providence works with the free actions of individuals, I don’t think that can ever be answered.
For me it’s tough because I think Jesus was forced into a lot of places he didn’t actually belong in the OT. That sort of ancient exegesis would not stand today so it’s hard for me to assign it much evidentiary value. A few passages hit home but the idea that the scriptures speak of Jesus obviously enough to count as evidence is a claim I’d happily like to see substantiated.
Edited to add…
And yes, we just can’t answer a lot of things. The older I get the easier this becomes to understand…
If I may make a suggestion, I think you will appreciate John Walton’s brief survey of the OT. As a broad overview of God’s work of redeeming Israel, it’s good to be reminded of what the big picture is.
It is interesting to see how the writers of NT handled the scriptures of OT. As you claim, many interpretations would not be accepted today. The writers knew the OT scriptures and the principles how the scriptures were understood much better than we do, so those interpretations were relevant and accepted.
For example, look how the text Isaiah 53 is treated in the NT (suffering servant who died for the sins of many). Not long ago, it was claimed that there were no references to that chapter in the NT (concluded by Hooker 1951). Then it was realized that Romans 4:25 is almost directly from Isaiah 53 according to Septuagint, only the order of words changed and one word was changed to an almost identical one - even Hooker agreed. After that it was concluded that the followers of Jesus condensed the message of Isaiah 53 into the teaching ‘Christ died for us’ (not all scholars agree about this conclusion but many do). So, every time NT speaks about ‘Christ died for us’, that expression includes also a reference to Isaiah 53, despite the previous claims of no references to that chapter in the NT.
The more we start to understand how early followers and jews of that time understood and interpreted the OT scriptures, the more convincing the claims of the writers of NT are. Of course these interpretations are ‘only’ interpretations of the teachings of OT but relevant and believable as such. The believers of that time agreed to the point that these writings were later included to the canon. Believers of our time believe that Holy Spirit opened the OT scriptures to the writers, so those interpretations are inspired teaching. That is not acceptable justification among scholars but gives weight to the teachings.
Hello Rave…lots of verses there. Off the top of my head, I think your question as to “how do we know these weren’t things added in by groups such as the early church or Authors themselves in order to fit a bias, and thus serve no historical purpose?”
Without plunging into each verse — I think one thing to note is that, while it is true that people in the first-century CE (as we call it) were expecting the soon arrival of a Jewish man who would be both Messiah and God ---- the startling (to them) reality is that they did not believe the Messiah would be crucified. For one thing, crucifixion was a sign of God’s curse…and for another thing, they wanted that Conquering Messiah to drive out the Romans. It’s a complex subject — some Jewish groups of that era evidently entertained the possibility of two different Messiahs at the same time…BUT …why manufacture a crucifixion (guy raises Lazarus but sorry, no can do for Himself? He saved others but not Himself —think that also is in the crucifixion accounts.)
And then there is that earthquake and darkness — evidence does exist for there being an earthquake centered off the Dead Sea. Possibly it is the one mentioned in connection with the crucifixion…some ancient discussions about a darkness that is noted elsewhere too.
the notion of crucifixion as a sign of God’s curse is not a good look for any sort of divine Messiah…and the concept of a resurrection (physical resurrection) was not expected to occur until that future time – not right then but still some day in the future.
And Jesus did not just imply He was God. That is why He was crucified — read His statements to the High Priest. I am sure the High Priest understood scriptural references quite well.
As for Josh McDowell…I don’t agree with him on everything but he is overall a good source… “Not bad or somewhere in between” —but a worthwhile source. I would not end my studies with him though…but generally a good source.
One of the reasons we can be fairly confident the NT writers didn’t add these things in “after the fact” is that they didn’t write in other issues that were hot-button at the time, like Circumcision. It would have been very easy to “put words in Jesus’s mouth” and close the issue for good if they were making it up. The fact that Jesus is “silent” on issues that seemed to want to divide the early church means the NT authors do seem to be doing a good job reporting the facts. Luke in particular does a great job on history.
I find Wikipedia very biased about these issues and does not necessarily represent mainstream scholarship on these matters. Even one of the founders of Wikipedia (who is agnostic) said some of the articles about Jesus pained a picture that was not supported by the majority of scholars and that Christians should be “rightfully angry.”
Still, how much we can trust the NT to be reliable on historical matters is worth asking. Did the NT writers have a theological bias that caused them not to report facts? How confident can we be that Jesus actually said what is quoted/attributed to him? What reason would the early church/others have for making up stories about Jesus?
Hagiography can seem to be an innocent form of praise. Who among us hasn’t attended a funeral of a much-loved person where the stories told (to an audience who all have living memories of the person for themselves) didn’t tend to favor the more flattering or praiseworthy aspects? Or when embarrassing stories are told, they are enjoyed for their humor or ‘cuteness’ or ‘endearment’ value? And in fact sometimes even our own memories soften or peel away some of the more painful parts, and our memories rewrite the narrative in less painful or more pleasureful ways. And others who might suspect differently on some of what we express may withold their corrections out of respect, or because they don’t want to be jerks to a person suffering bereavement. And so we may become complicit with slightly altered narrative of how we want to remember someone.
I know that my own memories of my own father have already dropped or even probably altered details around things. So I have first hand experience for how human memory does (and doesn’t) work. And our collective cultural memory will not be the perfect editor in bringing correction consistently to bear.
I say all this as a Christian, not because I want to plant doubts. In fact I do accept the testimonies as we find them, believing that God was at work all throughout the making/crafting/editing of that narrative. I only put this forward because I think we need to be honest and not oversell the evidentiary certitude we so wish to be able to present to skeptics. Their skepticism will always remain, at least in part, unanswerable by our so-called certitudes, therefore obliging them (like us) to make at least some active pursuit on a faith / trust basis - and that is as it should be. Our pretensions to skeptics otherwise accomplish nothing but to give them more reasons to think of all such testomony as not true or trustworthy.
Yes, while recognizing that hagiography can occur over dead people I think one must keep in mind the specific circumstances (social, cultural, psychological) surrounding Jesus’s purported resurrection so that one can judge the skepticism of skeptics… It is good and fine to approach the texts with a critical eye, but one shouldn’t leave logic at the door when assessing competing historical claims.
For example, to what degree would “failing memories or sentimental embellishment” alter the main thrust of what eyewitness were reporting (and later writing)? It is understandable to me that some memories–perhaps the number of angels around a tomb-- “get fuzzy around the edges” but it seems to me that the central claim of someone rising from the dead (asserted by not one, but many supposed witnesses) is not a matter of getting “fuzzy about details”. Similarly, it is one thing for an audience, for the sake of sentimentality, to let “embellished details about the dead’s character” slip by in a funeral service. It is another to assert and hold firmly to a “sentimental and innocent praise” for a dead person when that praise is radically counter-cultural and anti-religious for the mourners, and brings ostracization, if not direct persecution, from the larger society and cultural group in the long term.
Skeptics may not believe the resurrection accounts, but I don’t think conventional hagiography is a very good explanation for them.
Agreed. That isn’t just some ‘fuzzy detail’. And the encounter with the risen Christ is central to theirs and our faith. Unlike a lot of other stuff that so many like to bundle in there yet too - and which indeed may include a whole lot of important stuff, but stuff, nevertheless, that fades in significance next to the living presence of Christ.
You are correct in that there are limits of on creativity in the Gospels. Many would point to the women at the tomb. The lack of talk about circumcision could certainly be another. However, dietary laws in mixed communities where Jewish and Gentile Christian’s ate and worshipped together is probably showing up in the gospels. On this latter issue we absolutely do see some creativity. Mark has Jesus declare all foods clean which makes all the fierce debates in the early church and Peter’s vision in Acts a bit odd. Who knew true God of true God already definitely settled this issue with 100% certainty ca 30CE.
Mark also portrays the Pharisees as breaking their own sabbath law in patrolling grain fields on a sabbath to ensure the disciples are not , they are carefully watching to ensure Jesus’s disciple wash their hands before meals, following their own practice. They also check to see who he dined with in a private residence. Many think Mark’s portrait borders on caricature.
Mark is exercising some poetic license and being creative but he is probably framing traditional conflict traditions to meet the needs of his community. Jesus very well may have said what we find in Mark 7:20-22. That is not the issue. Marks interpretive gloss is the problem and please note that both Matthew and Luke chose to completely scrap it despite having Mark in front of them. He frames Jesus as declaring all food clean while just chastising the Pharisees for rejecting God’s commands in favor of their tradition. Well what did he just do? Food laws are not the “traditions of men” but the explicit commands of God in the Old Testament, and therefore, the concern of all good Jews.
Secondly, we know of excessively creative material like the resurrection of the saints in Matthew 27:51-53.
Why must we think it’s all or nothing? Just because you find some limits on creativity on one or two issues does not mean the whole gospel and all four are reliable. This is a huge leap in logic and fallacious thinking. Why couldn’t there be history mixed with creativity? Isn’t that how ancient bios worked? Maybe circumcision of Gentiles was also important for the young and new movement when Paul wrote but not when the Gospels were written where mixed communities make food laws more important? Then the lack of circumcision in the gospels is still evidence for limits in creativity but it might not be as strong as you think.
I agree, but since Jesus did not weigh in on every issue that popped up in the new church we can (my original words) “fairly confident” they were trying to preserve his words rather than create a figure called “Jesus” that agreed with what they wanted.
Dietary restrictions is an interesting point, and honestly I had never thought about that. However one thing we need to remember is Paul, a Pharisee, echoes Mark’s passage in Romans (though I think Romans was probably written before Mark, technically Mark would be echoing Romans):
“I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself” -Romans 14:14
“All things indeed are clean” -Romans 14:20
I think it would be odd for Paul, a devout Jew, to make this claim if he was not convinced Jesus made a similar comment as that in Mark
Furthermore, Matthew 15:11 does echo the same point made when he says, “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” I’m of the opinion that Mark’s comment “(in saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean)” which in many translations is put in parenthesis, is more of a comment/explanation that the author of Mark put in, and it would make sense to me that even if Luke and Matthew had access to Mark why they wouldn’t include this (Luke especially)
The content availability of Hoopla collections depends on the selections made by individual libraries or library co-ops. There is not one, universal Hoopla collection for all libraries.
However, it is helpful to know that Hoopla is a good place to check for a title. Overdrive, Proquest Ebook Central and EBSCO’s Ebook collections are all good places to check.
Thanks. Did not know that. The librarian where I worked said that Hoopla was the same. I even joined a hoopla group on Reddit and all the horror books mentioned, i checked and had them and so I never thought different. I’ll remember that though since I keep suggesting them.
I certainly am not able to answer to all. I can only give some comments, which may be relevant (or not):
.