1. Figures Similar to Jesus:
· In the case for the evolution of the gospels, one premise is that there were other figures that also claimed all the things such as miraculous virgin birth, miracles, and ascension into heaven. He uses that premise to suggest Jesus converts began to look at him like that. And told stories to make him seem divine.
· He only offers one example however which is Apollonius of Tyana. Apparently, many details of Apollo’s life match up with Jesus’. But it should be noted that you can take 2 of anything and highlight similarities and ignore dissimilarities.
· If this is the only example he offers then the case can be considered defeated as we only have one primary source for Apollo (Jesus has 4 gospels and many other mentions) and that source comes from Philostratus who was over 150 years removed from when Apollonius was supposed to have lived (the letters from Paul were written 10-15 years earlier than any gospel, so how could the gospels have evolved when before any of them were written, Paul was using a creed that confirmed the gospel message and went even further back than the writing of the letter to within 5 years of the crucifixion.
· But it doesn’t get better, one of Philostratus’ essential sources was the diary of Damis- a supposed companion of Apollo, even scholars say this could have been made up by Philostratus or have been a forgery that he naively used.
· It seems a lot more straight forward to assume that he copied from the gospels, or at the very least that the historicity of Apollonius is far more likely to have been contaminated by evolution and legendary adaptations.
· Better still, another explanation is that Philostratus like other Roman intellectuals and philosophers at that time, were commissioned to come up with works that would challenge the Christian faith. Anything and everything were being thrown at Christians, all kinds of violence and persecution. It doesn’t seem to be a stretch since he was even instructed to write the text by the Roman empress Julia Domna. In the late 3rd century, anti-Christian Porphyry in ‘Against the Christians’ points out that Jesus wasn’t unique, using figures like Apollonius.
· Around 300AD Roman authorities used the fame of Apollonius to wipe out Christianity. Hierocles one of the main instigators of the persecution in 303AD wrote in a pamphlet where he argued that Apollonius exceeded Christ as a wonder worker and yet wasn’t worshiped as God. In response bishop Eusebius accused Philostratus of being a fabulist and Apollonius a sorcerer.
· I don’t yet accept the premise that there were many humans on earth considered divine. He continues like he has established that premise but unfortunately, he hasn’t.
· But does Bart really want to compare him to Jesus? He had an entire canon of Jewish scripture predicting his arrival, and his teachings are the ones that transformed the world…and its Jesus’ name that has led to millions of alleged answered prayers, even ones done in controlled scientific experiments.
· Contradictions are essentially the only standard he offers to make the active claim that a story is not historical. So, using this logic, if something isn’t contradictory than it should be reliable right?
· He says discrepancies between accounts represent that they were changed at some point and both accounts cannot be true. But still admits that there is general agreement of the overall story with many details that agree. He also admits that “many can probably be reconciled”.
· He spends so much time talking about them only barely distinguishing between a ‘difference’ and ‘discrepancy’. He makes them out to be so severe and numerous but upon careful study of anyone of them, they crumble.
· I think he has a rather serious bias in this area, contradictions are what made him give up his Christian faith, and his bias must surely be clearly seen when what he calls a contradiction incapable of resolution can easily be resolved!
· When we look at what he offers, we will cut him a little bit of slack as these lectures were put out in 2000. But today it takes merely a google search to get the simple answers to the “almost impossible to reconcile differences.”
· So what does he offer? Synoptics say Jesus had the Passover meal with his disciples before his death and John indicates Jesus was being condemned to death before the Passover meal. “It’s probably impossible to reconcile this discrepancy if you want to explain how both accounts can be historically accurate.”
· If you don’t want my clunky summary of this short video, then watch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stqA0Es1y1o
· Bart uses this ‘contradiction’ in his case to say John was more evolved and deified Jesus by making him the Passover Lamb. Scholar Craig Bloomberg suggests John is in agreement with synoptics, read John 13, there’s your Passover meal right there. Pay attention to verse 29 where Judas leaves, this is what happens in the synoptic Passover meal too. And they thought he was going to buy food, why would he be buying food 24 hours early? It would have spoilt overnight, it was typically done the day of the meal, it makes more sense to think they were using the Passover as in the Passover week. Or the disciples thought he was going to give alms, why? Because that’s what is done on the first night of Passover. We learn that from Josephus, temples gates were left open specifically for the poor.
· Also keep in mind the word Passover referred to not just the meal but also the Passover week. This is consistent with John’s use 2:13, 6:4. 11:55.
· Despite the surface level reading of 18:28, it doesn’t make sense on the idea John was talking about the first Passover on Thursday, Lev 15:5-11 says that they only remain unclean till sunset (because that is the mark of the next day, not midnight). But it would make far more sense that they didn’t want to be defiled for the midday Passover meal on Friday called the hagigah.
· 2 Chr 35:7-9 does suggest extra/other meals could also be called the Passover meal. Bloomberg says while the later meals aren’t singled out apart from the initial Passover dinner, john had already narrated the first meal, readers would understand that it couldn’t be included again.
· What about 19:14? He may not even be talking about the preparation for the meal but the day of preparation for/during the Passover week. The standard Greek word for the day of preparation was used to refer to Friday since that was the day before the sabbath, and nothing could be done. This is how the word is used in all other gospels, and the Didache, and the martyrdom of Polycarp). John 19:31 literally points out that the day was the day of preparation and then pointed out the SABBATH to follow. So John was probably just noting it was Friday during the Passover week.
· This like most accusations of contradictions are based on quote mining, not full context.
· He also finds it historically untenable that this great census could have occurred, doesn’t really mean much since so many have doubted the bible on historical details only to be proved wrong. Unless he can show it couldn’t have happened? He’s just asking rhetorical questions (even though he claims they’re not) and using them as arguments for his position. But here are some attempts to answer the census question. https://youtu.be/VclDxog95Ck?list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TVnj0QVWnMTMzmpvuFqCpIv https://youtu.be/wVR0jXxJDn0?list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TVnj0QVWnMTMzmpvuFqCpIv
3. Evolution of Stories:
· He gives offers oral transmission and evolution as reasons why the stories COULD be untrustworthy. But doesn’t demonstrate that’s exactly what happened. To say they evolved and changed also has to ascribe malicious intent and mistakes to the scribes and authors and transmitters. Why would he do such a thing to a group of dedicated people who were willing to die for their beliefs?
· “Is it an accident that the earliest of our gospels portrays Jesus as human and the latest portrays him as divine” and “but in Mark’s gospel, Jesus is completely human in every way. He never talks about himself as divine and no one identifies him as being God. Not even the author himself. Contrast that with John”
· Points out that John says Joseph is Jesus’ father, why would he do that if he was so much more ‘theologically evolved’?
· This theory of evolution is completely refuted if we can show the author of the earliest gospel (Mark) believed Jesus to be divine. We can. The mistake he makes is in assuming the only way to claim to be God is by saying “Hello everyone my name is Jesus and I am God.” But Jesus couldn’t do that in his cultural context, he did however according to Mark walk on water and manipulate the winds something only God could do, and was alluded to in Proverbs 30 in a weird passage about the SON OF GOD, and forgive sins which only God can do, and other things that only God can do. And when confronted with things like this in a debate from the last couple of years on the Unbelievable! podcast, Ehrman responded with “I have no doubt that the author of Mark thought Jesus was divine.”
· Mark is the earliest and the shortest. Isn’t that interesting? There can’t have been too much copying in later gospels if the later gospels were the ones going into more detail. And how much easier is it to accuse the later gospels of evolution if the first one was so short, any extra information to any story whatsoever could be accused of evolution.
· Because Bart PRESUMES that Mark doesn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus, he has to get around how it begins, “Jesus Christ the son of God.” Bart goes on to say this isn’t really a big deal since Jewish leaders are called sons of god in the OT, so he doesn’t take that as a claim to divinity. “In the Hebrew bible, the son of god is someone that does the will of God, or mediates God’s will on earth, it is not a divine being, it is a human being.”
· He argues that “whoever is ashamed of me, so also the son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his power” is not clearly linking Jesus to the son of man and so is probably a real saying. Whoever is ashamed of ME so ALSO will the SON OF MAN be ashamed. I think its clear enough he’s is referring to himself since in other parts he has talked about his followers being ashamed of him, and has also since he has referred to himself as the son of man multiple other times.
· Bart makes the point that even if miracles can occur, there’s no way for a historian to show it could happen. And that he isn’t taking a philosophical position on miracles. Not a very climatic statement. Fairly obvious. He’s willing to take the historicity of some stories in the gospels just because they are multiply attested. We have those criteria and far more in favor of the resurrection hypothesis, it’s the best theory to explain all the data. You can show a miracle occurred in the same way to show anything natural occurred, you make inference to the best explanation. If it’s not that simple, then you DO take a philosophical position to miracles.
· He makes an analogy and talks about the infinitesimal probabilities of miracles and predicting things that never happen, that whole spiel would be annihilated with the prophecies and foreshadows from the OT.
· He’s defining miracles out of existence. “Historians can only establish what probably did happen, and a miracle by definition is the least likely thing, then a miracle can never be the most probable occurrence.” You don’t have to call it probable, but you should still highlight what theories have the best explanatory power, which is what the resurrection has.
· Makes an argument that his followers were calling him the messiah before he died because when he did die that would have ended any chance or expectation of him being the messiah, unless he actually rose and they once again realized God is vindicating him as messiah.
4. The Gospels:
· Points out that they are written in 3rd person and seem anonymous, aren’t many ancient texts are like this doesn’t mean we distrust them. But many scholars do doubt the authorship attributed.
· He uses Acts 4 to say Peter and John were illiterate, that’s a bad reading. Probably why he doesn’t specify the verse. The word used agrammatos, likely meant untrained in Jewish law, that’s why some translations say untrained in the scriptures, the leaders of Israel were completely flabbergasted at how an uneducated fisherman were able to navigate over 25 of the Hebrew texts and apply them to Jesus.
· Says eyewitness testimony is unreliable, this is addressed in history/reliability.
· How did the early Christians propagate the faith? By word of mouth. Oh no the Chinese whispers analogy. All of this is irrelevant, we get the core gospel message from the creed, using this, you can distrust any part of the gospels you want, but he doesn’t distrust all of the gospels, he distrusts what he doesn’t want to believe.
· There are other gospels not in NT as well. “A couple dozen” according to Bart. He doesn’t mention that those put into the NT canon were done so only if they could be traced back to the Apostles. He at least admits in regards to the other gospels, “as a rule, these are much later than the 4 found within the NT. Most of these date from the 2nd-8th century. They are pseudonymous, meaning they take the name of someone famous, someone from the stories of the gospels.” And “all of these books appear to be forged, in other words the authors wrote in somebody else’s name with the clear intention of deceit.” And “most of these texts appear to have used the canonical gospels as well as oral tradition” and “most of the other accounts outside the NT though are highly legendary in character” and “they appear to be of little use to us if we want to know what Jesus actually said and did” so why did he bring them up?
· “Books were not mass produced the way they are today…when an author publishes a book, within a week there will be hundreds of copies throughout the country and even overseas.” That’s only half true, the NT was astonishingly viral like that which is why we have over 30,000 manuscripts, they were being copied and shared like mad. It did go viral and international.
· He makes this refuted claim in order to say Thomas had no access to the original gospels so we can examine what he says. Some scholars think this was produced independently of the NT gospels. And historically authentic material from Jesus that survives nowhere else, some even call it the 5th gospel. But as Bart points out, the writings are only as early as 2nd century. Some are mentioned by church fathers living then who opposed the writings. They are all written in Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language. They are Coptic translations of Greek originals. We know this because these books were known to Greek authors, and we’ve found fragments of these writings in other places. Rooted in Gnosticism. Why can’t we trust Gnosticism? Because it’s the same knowledge/works to salvation you find in every other religion. Saved by grace alone is only Christianity. Jesus said his message was not secret, shout it from the rooftops, don’t hide it under a bushel, you don’t have to do or learn anything that lie goes back to satan in the garden. The teachings that he has gotten right, could have just been from oral tradition.
· But also says the coptic gospel of Thomas fails the criteria of contextual credibility as Jesus said about trampling on your clothes naked, makes sense in the context of second century when gnostic myths were floating around but not 1st century rabbi in Palestine. And gospel of Peter fails this as well as it has Jewish King Herod executing Jesus rather than the roman governor Pilate. Goes against what we know about how Rome ran their provinces.
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5. What we can know and How:
· He does the “what a historian would like to see” speech. Mike Winger and probably every other apologist destroys this. It’s not about what a historian would like, a historian would love footage and a bunch of photos. Doesn’t mean we can’t come to the truth still. A historian would also love lots of eyewitnesses and people dying for their claims. Got plenty of that.
· Numerous sources. Yes.
· Closeness to events. Yes.
· Independently produced. Yes.
· Not contradictory. Yes.
· Internally consistent. Yes.
· Not biased toward subject. No, but how could you get an unbiased source? We have enemy attestation for the empty tomb, his miracles, his existence, we have criteria of embarrassment for many things that come from the gospels.
· “To some extent we’re quite fortunate to have the kinds of sources we do for historical Jesus, his life is presented in multiple ancient sources. For example, Mark, Q, M, L, Paul, Thomas, Josephus etc.” and “many of these accounts of his words and deeds are independent of one another” and “he’s better attested than almost any figure in the ancient world” and “if there’s a tradition about Jesus that’s preserved in more than one of these documents, since they’re all independent of one another no one of them could have made it up…”
· If it’s in more than one the chances of it going back to a real event is significantly increased. Important things that fulfill this are Jesus associating with John the Baptist at the start of his ministry, and Jesus’ crucifixion under Pilate, Jesus having brothers one of them named James, he caused a disturbance that angered Jewish leaders and led to his death, also predicting the destruction of the temple, tells parables about comparing the kingdom of God to a seed and other such things.
· These criteria can only strengthen the likelihood of a particular thing being historically accurate. It can’t show something to be inaccurate, for example if something isn’t independently attested it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen-which he contradicts “this story doesn’t pass multiple attestation or dissimilarity so it’s a highly doubtful story.” I thought it just meant “we can’t confirm it.”
· He keeps saying he has shown they were changed; I have not seen anything like that. What did he show exactly? His theories on evolution and contradictions?
· “We should prefer traditions that are early, not theologically developed, and don’t represent the bias of the author.” That’s something he has manufactured and presupposed. He has said multiple times he has to look at it from a historical point of view not theological. Yet he’s making arguments and deciding what is history based on the authors supposed theology.
· Principle of dissimilarity-if the testimony goes against the vested interest of the reporter. Jesus association with John the Baptist, not something Christians would likely make up, his crucifixion, the Messiah was meant to be a reigning, conquering, king, overthrowing Israel’s enemies. “There were no jews prior to Christianity who thought the messiah was going to suffer and die.” Interesting since it was predicted in the OT! They wouldn’t have invented the Judas betrayal, which is also multiply attested.
· Wouldn’t have invented Jesus saying “whoever is ashamed of me, the son of man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father and his holy angels.” “There are sayings in the gospels which Jesus talks about the son of man and he’s clearly talking about himself.” They wouldn’t make it up because there isn’t a clear identification as Jesus being the son of man. This was because Jesus referred to himself as this in 3rd person. Separating the sheep and the goats. They wouldn’t have made up stories that sound like you need to be good to get to heaven because the church was all over the saved by grace message.
· Principle of contextual credibility-plausibly situated in the historical context of first century Palestine in order to be trusted.
· “Rock solid facts based on the criteria”, Jesus was born and raised Jewish, “there was virtually nothing more certain.” Came from the small village of Nazareth in Galilee, his parents are Jews who lived in Nazareth, Joseph and Mary. The tradition that Joseph was an old man developed in second century, the only other thing we learn about him is he was a common laborer. Jesus learnt to read as a child, “I think he would have been trilingual to some extent”.
· Brings up the “some of you won’t taste death” verse a few different times. Clearly doesn’t read the next verse(s).
· “Jesus clearly had the reputation as an exorcist”.
· Jesus was the embodiment of the kingdom and in a way, he did bring it to earth back then. As Christians continued it.
· Rejected by many/most people who knew him.
· “Jesus has to be understood as himself being thoroughly Jewish.”
· Thinks Jesus was telling everyone to give up everything and leave family and friends because the kingdom and end was near.
· “Was almost certainly betrayed.”
· Doesn’t sound like he is accurately representing the motives of the disciples and early Christians. They actually admitted they had no idea what Jesus was referring to every single time he predicted his death and resurrection. This fulfills criteria of dissimilarity and embarrassment.
· “They couldn’t find passages that predict the messiah is going to suffer and die because these passages don’t exist.” Thinks Isaiah 53 is about Israel…what about Psalm 22? But with both he says “the term messiah never appears there,” yeah, and? Does it necessarily have to Bart? And he says Jews prior to Christianity never interpreted Isaiah 53 as referring to a messiah who was going to suffer. Yeah and again, so what? More non-sequiturs. Assumes the motives of the gospel authors that they put my god my god in Jesus’ mouth to fulfill Psalm 22. Got any other reason for accusing the authors of that? How does he know? I thought he was only going to stick to the super reliable standards of contradictions, or the 3 main criteria he laid out? Why does he get to assume deceit on the part of the author? Because it’s possible? Because if it wasn’t deceit then it means an incredible prophecy has just been fulfilled? He’s not even going to address the fact that crucifixion was predicted in detail and surrounding features because he can’t accuse the authors of manufacturing crucifixion.
· “Or they divide his clothes by taking lots. Why do they do that? Because that’s what the psalm said.” No because that was a common thing they did to crucifixion victims this guy is ignorant or dishonest or both, but he is not offering any decent justification other than the fact that detailed prophecy is being fulfilled. And he said he wasn’t going to take any philosophical positions.
· Now talks about Christian doomsayers. “All the false predictions from the false predictors had two things in common, first they were all wrong, second, they all could quote and cite Jesus.” Bit misleading since they are still in direct violation of Jesus because he says don’t try to count the date no one knows the hour or the day, so if people are trying to guess then they are saying God/Jesus are wrong/lying. Every normal Christian knows date setters are idiots that make Christianity look bad. Jesus made his coming sound imminent yes but only to keep everyone on guard, God wants to give as much time as possible to allow for as many souls saved as possible.
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