Apologia

I recently read Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.  In some ways, Ehrman should be commended for this book.  He took what is to many people the very boring subject of textual crticism and turned it into a New York Times bestseller.  That is no easy task!  Textual criticism is the science (or art) of trying to determine the most accurate and original form of the New Testament text based on the manuscripts that are available to us.  How did this subject strike such a nerve with a popular audience?

Bart Ehrman is a very capable scholar and he does a good job of summarizing the history and methods of textual criticism.  He gives important examples from the Bible and he keeps things entertaining with his sharp wit.  He really does not say anything that shocking as scholars and informed students of the Bible have long known that certain parts of the Bible are not original, such as the ending of Mark, the woman caught in adultery from John and the trinitarian witness from 1 John.  Much of what Ehrman presents here was already available in his teacher Bruce Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament.

So what is the big deal about this book?  Ehrman’s purpose for this book is not just to give information about textual criticism but rather to demonstrate the unreliability of the Bible.  While this is a reasonably good book when separated from the introduction and conclusion, it is in these chapters that we really see the agenda.  Ehrman gives a moving testimony of his conversion in becoming a born again Christian, attending Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton and ultimately Princeton.  At each of these stages, Ehrman’s confidence in the Bible continued to slip.  While taught as a new Christian that the Bible was the perfect book, practically dropping out of heaven, his studies demonstrated that it was a very human book and that we do not even have the original text.  In his conclusion, he suggests that textual criticism really calls into question the doctrines of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible.  Even if the Bible was originally inspired, we do not have that original text.  We also have to wonder why if God inspired the authors, he did not inspire the scribes to copy the text accurately.  He finds very little reason to trust in the Bible as the Word of God.

Part of Erhman’s problem is a very wooden idea of inspiration and inerrancy.  I recommend Craig Evans’ comments in his book Fabricating Jesus.  At the same time, Ehrman’s introduction should be mandatory reading for all seminary professors so that we are not teaching people false and unbiblical ideas of inspiration.  In addition Ehrman’s book is self-refuting when it comes to our confidence in the text of the New Testament.  Much of the body of the book is focused on using the tools available to demonstrate what he believes to be the original version of the text.  Yet by doing that, he shows that there is hope in discovering the original text by practicing the very methods that he uses in his book.  Other problems include his attempt to identify the motives of changes in the text.  While some of his observations may be accurate, any conclusions are really only conjecture.  Ehrman basically falls into the current popular trend of pointing toward conspiracy theories.

While Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus is an adequate introduction to textual criticism, it is in fact an apologetic for his rejection of the Christian faith.  He shares his story and invites the reader to follow the “logical” conclusions of seeing the Bible as an error-ridden book.  But the fact is: we have a tremendous amount of Greek manuscripts, including some very early texts.  Compared to other ancient texts, we have a much better chance of discovering the original form of the texts.  Any good modern Bible will give the generally accepeted form of the text and will identify the questionable readings.  It is true that God allowed scribes to make mistakes.  But perhaps that was so that we would not worship a perfect Bible as an idol as the Israelites ended up worshiping the Bronze Serpent.  Misquoting Jesus asks some good questions but ends up giving the answers of one man who rejected the faith for other reasons.

Israel Knohl’s translation of the Gabriel Stone is now online and can be found here.  It must be noted that the Hebrew word for ‘live’ found on line 80 was not seen by those who first examined it and so there is some doubt as to this translation.  Even if it does say ‘live,’ it is not necessarily a reference to the resurrection.

An article in the New York Timesrecently caused a stir as the discovery of the Gabriel Stone (it was actually discovered about eight years ago) has led some to suggest that it is a pre-Christian example of a messiah who dies and rises on the third day.  This has had number of responses from both critics and believers.  If this is true, it could demonstrate that Jesus’ death and resurrection were indeed a part of the Jewish messianic expectation and that it makes the New Testament more credible.  On the other hand, it could suggest that it was a Jewish tradition and that when the Gospelwriters were creating the story of Jesus, they based the death and resurrection on this already existing tradition.  Israel Knohl, the scholar who has been making the headlines over this find, argues that it does demonstrate the existence of this expectation and that this more firmly places Jesus in his Jewish context.  At the same time, we must remember that in 2000 Knohl wrote a book about Jewish expectations of a suffering messiah and so he was already thinking in these terms before this was made public.  However, we cannot dismiss his claims based on his bias (we are all biased).  Let us look at the evidence.

The Biblical Archaeology Societyhas the text of this stone available online in both Hebrew and English.  BAS also has an article online that you can read here.  The key part of the text is this:

69. Thus He said, (namely,) YHWHof Hosts, the Lord of Israel …:
70. Prophets have I sent to my people, three. And I say
71. that I have seen …[…]…
72. the place for the sake of(?) David the servant of YHWH[ …]…[…]
73. the heaven and the earth. Blessed be …[…]
74. men(?). “Showing mercy unto thousands”, … mercy […].

75. Three shepherds went out to?/of? Israel …[…]

76. If there is a priest, if there are sons of saints …[…]
77. Who am I(?), I (am?) Gabri’el the …(=angel?)… […]
78. You(?) will save them, …[…]…
79. from before You, the three si[gn]s(?), three …[….]
80. In three days …, I, Gabri’el …[?],
81. the Prince of Princes, …, narrow holes(?) …[…]…
82. to/for … […]… and the …
83. to me(?), out of three - the small one, whom(?) I took, I, Gabri’el.
84. YHWHof Hosts, the Lord of(?)[ Israel …]…[….]
85. Then you will stand …[…]…
86. …\
87. in(?) … eternity(?)/… \

Now most people would be confused as to where this death and resurrection is.  In line 80, Israel Knohl claims to be able to see the Hebrew imperative for ‘live’ - hayeh.  However, the fact that this word does not appear in the current transcripts of the text tells us that this is far from certain.  What about the reference to ’stand’ in line 85?  That word does not have to mean resurrection and could simply be a reference to standing in the face of opposition. 

Now resurrection does not appear very often in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).  One of the few passages is Isaiah 26:19 which has two Hebrew words in paralleland yet neither of these words appear in the Gabriel Stone (although the NIV has ‘live’ in this verse, the Hebrew is better translated ‘awake’).  The other passage is Daniel 12:2.  This passage has the same word that appears in Isaiah 26:19, quwts which means ‘awake.’  It seems as if the preferred Hebrew term for resurrection is not ‘live’ (which may not be in the Gabriel Stone anyway) or ’stand’ but rather ‘awake’ (which does not appear in the Gabriel Stone).

There is another reason to suggest that this is not evidence of a tradition of a three day resurrection.  If you notice in this passage and the text as a whole, that the number three is very important and appears often.  If the person described here does rise on the third day, the only reason for this is that everything happens in threes.  The point is that all that takes place is under God’s direction and control as demonstrated by the threes.  The number three does not play the same role in the Gospels.  Jesus has an inner core of Peter, James and John, but no big deal is made of that as the traditional three.  Twelve is still a much more important number than three in the Gospels.

Finally, we have to ask how likely is it that this text could have influenced the Gospel writers?  This reminds me of claims that some obscure inscription in a long lost pyramid is the key to understanding the New Testament.  Even if there was a parallel (and there usually is not), it does not matter if that inscription was not available to the biblical writers.  What are the chances that the Gabriel Stone was known to the Gospel writers?  Unlike other non-biblical texts such as 1 Enoch and other examples from the Pseudepigrapha, we do not have evidence of this being a popular text in the first century.  This is the first we have heard of it and it is very possible that it was forgotten as soon as it was written. 

The excitement about the Gabriel Stone is another example of people getting worked up about something that is not that important.  Yes, it may help us to understand some of the Jewish culture and beliefs at the turn of the century but it is by no means the “first draft” of the Gospel of Jesus.  In all likelihood it has nothing to do with the resurrection and probably the Gospel writers had never heard of the Gabriel Stone.

For those of you interested in the recent Gabriel Stone discovery, CNN has an interesting video on it that you can find here.  This video has a helpful but brief comment by New Testament scholar Ben Witherington.  I plan to give a more detailed response to this discovery soon, but this will give people something to think about.

Thanks go to Brian Auten over at www.apologetics315.blogspot.comfor posting some excellent MP3 links including these on Islam and Christianity.  They are debates between William Lane Craig and Shabir Ally on a number of subjects relating to Islam and Christianity.  I have only listened to two of the so far.  The first was on the concept of God in Islam and Christianity.  Although Craig does a fine job explaining the Trinity, I was disappointed in his suggestion that the God of Christianity is loving and the God of Islam is hateful.  The fact is that both Christian and Muslim texts have a range of descriptions of God and it is too easy to pick and choose.  Craig does a better job on the concept of the real Jesus.  Shabir Ally attempts to argue that Jesus could not have claimed to be the Son of God because God would not have raised a blasphemer (not that Ally believes in the resurrection).  He could not see that the resurrection might be evidence that Jesus was NOT a blasphemer and WAS the Son of God.  Whatever your views, this collection of debates is worth listening to to learn more about both Islam and Christianity.

One of the books that I have recently read is C.H. Dodd’s The Founder of Christianity.  Dodd was one of the most important New Testament scholars of a previous generation.  This was his last book and it came out in 1970.  Despite being an older book, it is still a good read.  If you are looking for a book on Jesus filled with footnotes and references for you to track down, this is not the book for you.  This book is based on some lectures that Dodd gave and the footnotes in the main are just the the biblical references.  But if you are looking for a good solid retelling of the life of Jesus from a historical perspective, this is worth looking at. 

That is not to say that I agree with everything in it.  C.H. Dodd was a proponent of “realized eschatology.”  Realized eschatology means that the eschatological passages of the Gospels refer not to an event at the end of history but rather to something that took place in Jesus’ earthly ministry.  I disagree with this, believing with most scholars, that Jesus expected some major events to transform the world in the future, including his second coming. 

At the same time, there were many good things in Dodd’s book that were of value in my current research.  Here are a couple of quotes from Dodd on the idea of the Gospels as religious rather than historical literature and on their value as historical documents with an oral beginning.

The gospels are indeed religious documents; they do bear witness to the faith of the church; but that is not to say that they are not also historical documents or that their authors had no interest in the facts. Unless Luke is grossly misleading his readers, he set out, like his predecessors in the field, “to draw up an account of the events that have happened,” in order to covey authentic knowledge about them. And since he treated Mark as a valuable, though by no means infallible, source of information, we may take it that he regarded Mark as an historical as well as a religious document; and it seems impossible to deny a similar character to the other two gospels as well.

When all allowance has been made for these limiting factors—the chances of oral transmission, the effect of translation, the interest of teachers in making the sayings “contemporary,” and simple human fallibility—it remains that the first three gospels offer a body of sayings on the whole so consistent, so coherent, and withal so distinctive in manner, style, content, that no reasonable critic should doubt, whatever reservations he may have about individual sayings, that we find reflected here the thought of a single, unique teacher.

You can find the text of The Founder of Christianity on-line here.  It is definitely a book worth reading.

In the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review there is an interesting article titled “Wilderness Wanderings: Ethnographic Lessons from Modern Bedouin.”  In the article, Ze’ev Meshel attempts to show that many of the stories from the Pentateuch make sense when compared to practices of modern Bedouin.  Using these modern examples, as well as some ancient Egyptian inscriptions, the author makes a good argument that the wilderness stories are believable.  Despite the lack of archaeological evidence (which you would not expect anyway), the events described in the wilderness narratives in their cultural context actually make sense, despite the modern tendency to dismiss them as myth.  The article is good, but there are some problems.  Just because there are similarities between modern Bedouin and some of the biblical stories does not mean that they both have a common ancient source.  It is very possible that some of the practices of the Bedouin come from the biblical traditions passed down through Islam.  Nevertheless, Meshel makes a good case for the plausibility of the wilderness narratives.

This has nothing to do with apologetics, but I thought some who read this blog might be interested in a new blog I have started focused on leadership and Christian ministry.  You can find the new blog Cassiciacum (named after the place where St. Augustine would meet with  his friends and discuss the things of God) here.  Please let others, who might interested, know about this new blog.

One of the areas that people often get fooled is in the area of the early church fathers.  Protestants especially have a lack of knowledge about the church fathers.  A good resource is the latest Patristic Carnival found at the God Fearin’ Forum.  There is a good selection of links on a number of issues dealing with patristics.  I do not say that just because I am one of those links.  Check out Patristic Carnival XIII here for a wealth of great information.

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-wore image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

- C.S. Lewis