tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post3989595272903948265..comments2024-03-22T17:35:52.045-04:00Comments on Extra Thoughts: Follow up to Part II of Ehrman-McGrew radio debateLydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-43171366774644169452021-04-15T19:26:04.802-04:002021-04-15T19:26:04.802-04:00If they could be done well. That's always a bi...If they could be done well. That's always a big if! :-)Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-63162665520105317772021-04-14T11:51:09.790-04:002021-04-14T11:51:09.790-04:00Would you advocate for courses on reasoning, falla...Would you advocate for courses on reasoning, fallacies, etc. to be made standard for Biblical Studies degree, or even every degree? Of course, it would be unlikely to happen, but in an ideal world? (I'm a classical school teacher, so we're trying to teach logic as a habit of thought before college.)Joshua W.D. Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03010415370862297504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-16563583236874445192021-04-09T13:28:22.797-04:002021-04-09T13:28:22.797-04:00That for sure, but also, they don't test their...That for sure, but also, they don't test their own theories for cherry picking. They don't realize that these theories can be like imaginary trails in the woods--existing only in the mind of the person who thinks that he is finding them there.<br /><br />Example: In one of his commentaries (I think on Matthew) Craig Keener says something to the effect that Jesus has more conflicts with "Pharisaism" in Matthew than he does in the earlier Gospels but less than in John. IIRC he uses this to approximately place Matthew, dating-wise. Some notion that more conflicts with "Pharisaism" indicate a later dating. Which is dubious in itself.<br /><br />But what Keener needed to do was to sit down with all four Gospels and systematically look up words like "Pharisee" and cognates, systematically look up negative portrayals in parables, systematically look up Sabbath controversies, *count* them, and then see if this holds water.<br /><br />I did that. It doesn't.<br /><br />Counting is of course a little subjective, but arguably, Luke has the highest number of "conflicts with Pharisaism" of all the Gospels. John has no more Sabbath controversies than the Synoptics (I believe fewer) and lacks Luke's highly negative portrayal of the Pharisee in the parable about the publican, as well as several other conflicts during Holy Week when they come and ask him questions. The whole developmental thesis there is concocted. I don't even know how Keener drew the conclusion.<br /><br />But nobody seems to do this kind of testing.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-1921283289362494812021-04-09T11:40:17.983-04:002021-04-09T11:40:17.983-04:00In terms of the "development" of anti-Je...In terms of the "development" of anti-Jewish sentiment, Mark actually records the Jewish leaders plotting Jesus' death earlier that any of the other Gospels (3:6), in response to Him healing on the Sabbath, long before Pilate comes on the scene. <br /><br />Would you say that one of the main reasons these kinds of theories, despite their negligible evidentiary base, catch hold and persevere is that NT scholars spend much more time reading other scholars, and very little time actually reading and re-reading the Gospels at length and in detail?Joshua W.D. Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03010415370862297504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-73428750100114727342019-11-29T16:09:01.783-05:002019-11-29T16:09:01.783-05:00Thanks, Joe! Appreciate this supportive comment. I...Thanks, Joe! Appreciate this supportive comment. I have a lot of material archived on this blog though I don't post here much recently. Feel free to browse around using the tags for other material that may interest you!Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-73364439294063800112019-11-29T15:12:34.043-05:002019-11-29T15:12:34.043-05:00I am one who dislikes, and doesn't listen to, ...I am one who dislikes, and doesn't listen to, debates as a general rule. To me, too often they are hard to keep up with, and more often than not, only prove who is the better debater. As a result, I prefer to read a good summary of a debate, where I can take my time and think about what I've read. That way, I can better digest the information. This is one of the best summations of a debate I've seen. The arguments here are solid and are not interrupted by the personal strategies of a debater, such as the rudeness of Ehrman that you noted. Techniques like that, in my opinion, serve only to distract the listener, and often allow the debater to sneak otherwise weak arguments past the audience. That is shallow, and inclines more toward 'winning' than toward getting at the truth of a point made. This analysis was a very useful and thorough effort on your part, and one I'll probably save and study more closely. Thank you. Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17043898277409521125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-28217261822945221982015-08-17T18:21:59.449-04:002015-08-17T18:21:59.449-04:00Got it, thanks for setting me straight there. It s...Got it, thanks for setting me straight there. It seems to happen to me a lot when it comes to exegesis and Biblical history. <br /><br />I've listened to a lot of Bart Ehrman's speaking, but he's never struck me as disingenuous before... but your post has me wanting to go re-watch some of those to see if he does anything else rhetorically slippery like your hunch.<br /><br />Interestingly, at a quick glance at some Hitler scholarship (always ghastly waters to tread!), it looks like John 8:39-44 was a particular citation by Hitler in order to cast the Jewish people in a Satanic—or at least starkly negative—light. It looks like for most of the dialogue, the term "The Jews" is used. But I wonder if it might not be a kind of shorthand here for the Jewish leaders. In 8:13, the Pharisees are the first to speak ("The Pharisees said to him...") and after that it merely uses "The Jews." It could be something like when fiction authors may have "...Lydia said." followed by "...she said." for shorthand afterwards as long as the dialogue continues unbroken.<br /><br />Thanks for replying!<br /><br />P.S. I loved your article in the Blackwell Companion of Natural Theology, by the way. Excellent work!Thomas Yeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04200601813417870045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-81791620444678383812015-08-17T18:00:22.949-04:002015-08-17T18:00:22.949-04:00Thomas, well, actually, I did _not_ say that John ...Thomas, well, actually, I did _not_ say that John is more anti-semitic than the synoptics. I said that I can counterexample any claim of progression in either direction. Since John is the latest gospel chronologically, the statement that John is more anti-semitic than the synoptics would be, to that extent at least, _agreement_ with Ehrman's claim of a progression. You'll recall that he is saying that the gospels progressively blame the Jews more for Jesus' death and progressively blame Pilate less. <br /><br />I don't really agree that the gospel of John distances Jesus from Jewish traditions. I would have to check the instances of "the Jews" as opposed to other locutions, but as is usually the case, that would be a pretty minimal item of data on which to based any generalization.<br /><br />Notice that not only is the scene in Matthew missing from John, but so too are the Jewish taunts on the cross and (what a commentator in the thread has pointed out) the parable of the vineyard, which _strongly_ blames the Jews as killing "the son" directly in the parable and prophesies that the owner of the vineyard will kill them and give the vineyard to others.<br /><br />On your point #2, what you suggest is certainly something Ehrman or others could have claimed, and (to be cynical) I wouldn't be surprised if Ehrman says it on some other occasion, because he seems (IMO) to say whatever comes to mind at a particular moment if it can be brought off with that air of inevitability and authority that he likes to affect. It just so happens that in this particular debate that wasn't the direction he chose to go. That wouldn't stop him from making the opposite statement at another time, though (namely, that it was because of _less_ conflict with the Jews and _more_ conflict with the Romans that Christians "became more anti-semitic" moving into the later 1st and 2nd centuries). Nobody is likely to keep score or point out the contradiction, if he were to do so.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-89733461822720234112015-08-17T17:58:43.849-04:002015-08-17T17:58:43.849-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-50582652279336780962015-08-17T17:47:22.820-04:002015-08-17T17:47:22.820-04:00Dear Lydia,
I am so glad for this (as well as the...Dear Lydia,<br /><br />I am so glad for this (as well as the other) follow-up post delving into the deeper elements of exegeting the text surrounding the Ehrman-McGrew debate. Those of us laymen simply listening to the debate have inadequate background knowledge to adjudicate many of the historical and textual claims made in the course of the debate, so on the progression of anti-Semitic sentiments in the gospels—which Tim did not specifically take the time to refute textually—I could only take Ehrman's word for it. I could sense that something about it felt fishy, but now that you've laid it all out I can see how artificial the interpretation must become in order to make the theory fit.<br /><br />A couple quick thoughts:<br /><br />1) It seems to me that you're spot-on in saying that John is, if anything, *more* anti-Semitic than the Synoptic gospels. Yes, Matthew has that rather discomforting scene, but on the whole Matthew reinforces Jesus' Jewish identity the most strongly out of any of the gospels. John distances Jesus somewhat from the Hebrew traditions and places the emphasis more on Jesus as an orator—perhaps even a Greek-style philosopher?—than a Jewish rabbi in his discourses. On top of that, John tends to identify the Jewish leaders and Pharisees more flatly as "The Jews"—it's for this reason that the Gospel of John was said to be Adolf Hitler's favourite book of the Bible. It other-izes the Jewish people more with that flattened title than even (arguably) the scene in Matthew. And it definitely serves as a counter-example to Ehrman's progression.<br /><br />2) Bracketing the exegetical data showing that there is *not* a progression as Ehrman claims, it seems to me that Ehrman would have been better off acknowledging that there was, in fact, less Jewish opposition and more Roman opposition as time went on. Then, he could instead say that precisely *because* of the Roman opposition, the later Gospel and apocryphal-gospel writers tried to make Pilate appear sympathetic in order to harmonize the small and beleaguered Christian sect with the larger Roman Empire. The idea would be that the writers would be scapegoating the now non-existent Jewish leaders and flattering the Roman authorities who were in a position to do them harm—a win-win situation! At least that would make historical sense in the broad picture—but that wouldn't help one bit to show that the data supported the theory, of course...Thomas Yeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04200601813417870045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-88332534323735294672015-08-09T16:30:02.995-04:002015-08-09T16:30:02.995-04:00Excellent point. In my summary I backed up only as...Excellent point. In my summary I backed up only as far as the existence of the plot and left out Jesus' own statements.<br /><br />Similarly, it occurred to me today that Jesus' predictions of the fall of Jerusalem in Matthew and Luke, which Jesus explicitly states is a result of their rejecting him, are not echoed in John.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-71861054263166893162015-08-09T16:16:40.658-04:002015-08-09T16:16:40.658-04:00Excellent analysis of how all of the Gospels place...Excellent analysis of how all of the Gospels place blame equally on both the Jews and the Romans. One further note on that: The synoptics all summarize the blame for Jesus' death in Jesus' own prophecy of his death, placing equal blame on the Jews and the Romans:<br /><br />1) Mark 10:33-34: “'We are going up to Jerusalem,' he said, 'and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.'” <br /><br />2) Matthew 20:18-19: “'We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!'”<br /><br />3) Luke 9:22: "And he said, 'The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.'”<br /><br />Luke 18:31-33: "Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, 'We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.'”<br /><br />4) John does not include these same predictions of his death. In John, Jesus' predictions of his death (unless I somehow missed it) do not place blame on anyone. For example, John 12:31-32: "'And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.' He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die."Brad Cooperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12815725289958403154noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-6635201867114966752015-08-09T08:37:27.004-04:002015-08-09T08:37:27.004-04:00Sam, excellent example! That is precisely the kind...Sam, excellent example! That is precisely the kind of thing that Ehrman leaves out in his cherry-picking approach, and it's a good example of what I think of as widening the focus. For example, instead of just focusing on the passion, what about looking at the lead-up to the passion (the plotting of the Jewish leaders) and the parables as well?<br /><br />In this particular parable, it explicitly indicates that those who kill the beloved son are the vineyard managers, and that the Jewish leaders knew that it was directed against them! And of course in the parable, there is no "Pilate" figure at all! The vine-growers just kill the son themselves! So much for the idea that the blame upon the Jewish leaders for the death of Jesus gradually grows and the blame upon Pilate gradually decreases. And *of course* this parable is not found in John, the latest and (according to Ehrman) the gospel that blames the Jews the most for Jesus' death.<br /><br />Good find.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-84037538677203173962015-08-09T07:40:58.747-04:002015-08-09T07:40:58.747-04:00I've been listening to your debate between Drs...I've been listening to your debate between Drs. McGrew and Ehrman and then I ran across this passage and I'm wondering, if Ehrman is right and the later gospels added in a bias against the Jews, then why is this in the Gospel of Mark?!<br /><br />Mark 12:1-12 (NASB)<br />1 And He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard and put a wall around it, and dug a vat under the wine press and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. 2 At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. 3 They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others. 6 He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ 8 They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not even read this Scripture: <br />‘The stone which the builders rejected,<br />This became the chief corner stone; <br />11 This came about from the Lord,<br />And it is marvelous in our eyes’?”<br />12 And they were seeking to seize Him, and yet they feared the people, for they understood that He spoke the parable against them. And so they left Him and went away.Samuel Ronickerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15254647831303355637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-31211853723572929492015-07-31T13:43:55.602-04:002015-07-31T13:43:55.602-04:00Tony, I think you are right, and I think this is p...Tony, I think you are right, and I think this is primarily because Christianity is indeed founded on fact. <br /><br />However, people do sometimes irrationally die for an ideology that is not based on any well-founded fact. (E.g. That sect in China that burns themselves to death.) <br /><br />The chronological point at which it was *possible* that Christian converts (not the apostles themselves) were believing without sufficient evidence, as unfortunately I think some Christians today believe in Christianity in a "blind faith" manner, is difficult to pinpoint. This is why I myself tend to emphasize the testimony and *willingness* to die of the apostles (though some, like St. John, did not actually suffer martyrdom), since they were *in a position to know* rather than at multiple removes.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-84691224782474650642015-07-31T12:41:36.107-04:002015-07-31T12:41:36.107-04:00And why, pray tell, would "ordinary" Chr...And why, pray tell, would "ordinary" Christians suffer themselves to be treated badly for believing in - and sticking to - what <i>they themselves know</i> are fairy tales they tell their kids? <br /><br />Let's play a game here: we're going to play "telephone", with a twist. Each person will INTENTIONALLY modify the message they hear by a little bit when passing it on in whispers to the next person. After the message goes around the room 4 times, torturers will come in and demand of each person (a) what you last heard, and (b) whether you will stand by that - whatever it was - as true, to your dying breath if tortured. <br /><br />I am going to go out on a limb here, and guess that somewhat less than 90% will hold fast to the last thing they were told. Probably less than 50%. Maybe even less than 0.000000001%. Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-32992217929423405132015-07-31T10:05:00.721-04:002015-07-31T10:05:00.721-04:00Acts certainly does focus on leaders, Steve, so yo...Acts certainly does focus on leaders, Steve, so your point is well-taken. Acts 8 makes it clear that the persecution was wider.<br /><br />Of course, Ehrman in the debate wants to talk about persecution of non-leaders because he's obviously insinuating that people who had *no knowledge whatever* of the events directly were "telling stories" about these events and, in essence, making it up as they went along. Hence, if you can't stop all the uninformed rubes (that is, ordinary Christians) from this kind of bedtime story-telling, Christianity will just develop naturally without any need for very much basis in fact. The persecution of the actual eyewitnesses is indeed more important *evidentially*, so in a sense it's a good thing that Acts *does* focus on them.<br /><br />Notice, too, that Ehrman tries to refer to John as "hearing stories" similar to Luke and vaguely implies that this explains an undesigned coincidence surrounding the feeding of the five thousand. But if these were really just legendary stories growing up around Jesus from people who were never there telling them to their children, there is no reason whatsoever why they should be consistent at all, much less display undesigned coincidences. This is presumably why he keeps his reference to John's "hearing stories" quite vague and doesn't even say whether John then plotted to fit his later gospel with these earlier stories or was just influenced by them in some unstated fashion.<br /><br />Now that the issue of undesigned coincidences has been raised (having previously not been on his horizon at all), Ehrman needs to have it both ways: He will need to try to say both that the gospels are radically inconsistent because these "stories" developed from tale-telling among non-eyewitnesses and that they have delicate dovetailings among them because people heard each other's stories!Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-47549922238564081822015-07-31T07:59:34.868-04:002015-07-31T07:59:34.868-04:00The major issue is not what Bart Ehrman argues; th...The major issue is not what Bart Ehrman argues; the major issue is Bart Ehrman. While the vast majority of scholarship has been involved either in advocacy of Christianity, or at least in the objective analysis of it and its foundations, in recent years a whole industry has sprung up around dismantling the faith. <br /><br />It serves the same academic purpose (to gain name recognition, to sell books, to attract students) whether one becomes famous or becomes infamous. "All publicity is good publicity." And so we have a Bishop Spong, or a Jesus Seminar, or now a Bart Ehrman. I recall Lydia's earlier post quoting a scholar from a bygone day who said something like, "Someone can raise more suspicious questions in 30 minutes than can be answered in 30 months." While Ehrman keeps us busy--and takes his stand against the Lord who rose again--his stature in academy grows. And we should not be overly disappointed or discouraged when the disciples of such detractors of Jesus are not impressed or dissuaded by arguments as solid as those offered by Tim and Lydia.<br /><br />No, friends, rejoice that your own names are written in Heaven.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14816140945582832751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-90075516843600985472015-07-31T03:30:48.024-04:002015-07-31T03:30:48.024-04:00thanks Lydia, and Tim. this has meant a lot to me....thanks Lydia, and Tim. this has meant a lot to me. being so familiar with the gospel, one still doubts oneself listening to Ehrman. but the way you have laid it out is the natural way it's always appeared to me when read. reubsterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02488156541183448879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-76753301735999629842015-07-31T02:19:23.217-04:002015-07-31T02:19:23.217-04:00On persecution in Acts, isn't the manifest pat...On persecution in Acts, isn't the manifest pattern for Luke to focus on Christian leaders? That hardly means ordinary Christians weren't persecuted. Rather, it means that like historians generally, Luke is selective, and like historians generally, he tends to focus on the movers and shakers. But it would be naive to infer that his relative silence regarding the plight of ordinary Christians implies their exemption from persecution. It's just that they aren't driving the action, so they don't receive the same attention from the narrator. stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-14296457660610174802015-07-30T15:05:12.605-04:002015-07-30T15:05:12.605-04:00Thanks Lydia. Excellent analysis. What a slippery ...Thanks Lydia. Excellent analysis. What a slippery fellow is our Bart!Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16017018102397257139noreply@blogger.com