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Did John Really Write John?

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

The Gospel according to John has received more scrutiny than the other Gospels put together. Case in point, dating back to the 1920s, critical scholars have argued that the apostle John could not have written the Gospel. Rather, they’ve suggested a whole slew of other possibilities (anonymous, John the Elder, Lazarus, John Mark, the rich young ruler, etc.) But is there any evidence to back up their contentions? Should we reject the traditional position which the church has subscribed to for almost two thousand years?

In this post, I will argue that John the son of Zebedee penned the fourth Gospel. I will make my case in three steps: First, I will examine the external evidence. Second, I will examine the internal evidence. And third, I will refute the common objections.

External Evidence for John’s Authorship

Writing around AD 180, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote, “John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.”¹ In other words, Irenaeus declares that John wrote the fourth Gospel while living in Ephesus. And this John should be identified with the disciple whom Jesus loved and reclined on Jesus’ breast in John 13:23.

How would Irenaeus be privy to such information? He claims to be a spiritual grandson of John himself! Pay careful attention to how Irenaeus reminisces about his childhood experiences.

I remember the events of those days more clearly than those which have happened recently, . . . so I can speak even of the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and disputed, how he came in and went out, the character of his life, the appearance of his body, the discourse which he made to the people, how he reported his converse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord, how he remembered their words, and what were the things concerning the Lord which he had heard from them, including his miracles and his teaching, and how Polycarp had received them from the eyewitnesses of the word of life, and reported all things in agreement with the Scriptures.²

Notice that Irenaeus claims to have been taught by Polycarp who was taught by John. That is to say, Irenaeus was in a position to know if John was the author of the fourth Gospel.

Other church fathers also affirm John’s authorship. Clement of Alexandria—also writing around AD 180—stated, “But that John, last of all, conscious that the outward facts had been set forth in the Gospels, was urged on by his disciples, and, divinely moved by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.”³

The Muratorian Fragment—a late second-century document—states plainly, “The fourth of the Gospels is that of John, [one] of the disciples.”

And finally, writing a couple of decades later, Tertullian reports, “Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards.” ⁴

On top of all this, every titled manuscript of the Gospel lists John as its author. In short, the early church affirmed that John wrote the fourth Gospel.

Internal Evidence for John’s Authorship

John 21:24 reports, “This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.” Which disciple is this? Verse 20 tell us. “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper.” In other words, the disciple whom Jesus loved and leaned on Jesus’ breast (John 13:23) wrote this Gospel.

But who is this mysterious disciple whom Jesus loved? He was certainly one of the twelve at the Last Supper (John 13:23). The synoptics make clear that only the apostles joined Jesus for this meal. Moreover, the disciple whom Jesus loved is repeatedly distinguished from Peter (John 13:23-24; 20:2-9; 21:20). Finally, he is one of the seven disciples who went fishing in chapter 21:2. That said, he cannot be Peter, Thomas, or Nathanael. He is, therefore, either one of the sons of Zebedee or one of the other two unnamed disciples that were present at the Sea of Galilee in John 21. It must be said, however, that James the son of Zebedee died in the early 40s, which rules him out as a potential author.

An additional note worth mentioning is that John is never mentioned by name in the Gospel. His absence would be extremely odd if someone else wrote this Gospel. After all, the Gospel mentions other prominent characters like Peter and Andrew and even less familiar characters like Philip and Judas (not Iscariot). Moreover, while the synoptic Gospels all refer to the forerunner of Jesus’ ministry as John the Baptist (it was necessary to distinguish him from the other prominent John), this Gospel only refers to him as John. In other words, the author did not feel it necessary to distinguish that John from himself.

Finally, John and Peter are repeatedly shown as close companions in the synoptic Gospels, Acts, and Galatians (Mark 5:37; 14:33; Acts 3:1-4:23; Gal. 2:9). Similarly, the fourth Gospel puts Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved together frequently (13:23-24; 20:2-10; 21:20-23).

The most plausible explanation for this data is that John is the disciple whom Jesus loved, and therefore, the author of the fourth Gospel.

Answering Objections

One of the more frequently cited reasons for rejecting Johannine authorship is the self-description “the one whom Jesus loved.” In other words, John seems rather full of himself to give himself this title. This objection, however, should not deter us from accepting traditional authorship. After all, what Christian doesn’t affirm that God loves them? There is nothing boastful about making this claim. On the contrary, its the mark of humble gratitude. As Carson and Moo assert, it “is scarcely the mark of arrogance; it is rather the mark of brokenness.”⁵ Paul, for example, declares that Christ “loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Nothing arrogant about that. Just plain awe and gratitude.

Another frequent objection to the tradition view is that the early church thought a different John wrote the Gospel. This objection stems from a quotation from Papias who mentions a particular “elder John” in addition to the “apostle John.” However, as Carson and Moo point out, the Greek syntax Papias uses, namely the anaphoric use of the article for the second John, strongly suggests that “elder John” and “apostle John” are really the same person.⁶ Also noteworthy is that Peter calls himself an “elder” in 1 Peter 5:1. In other words, the apostles also understood themselves as elders in the early church. Both 2 and 3 John are said to be by “the elder,” and Papias may simply be echoing that language.

A third objection is that an uneducated Galilean fisherman never could have penned this Greek Gospel. This objection fails on multiple fronts as well. First, while Acts 4:13 states that Peter and John were “uneducated,” that description does not imply that they were illiterate. “Uneducated” simply means that they hadn’t been officially trained in Jewish Rabbinical schools—not unlike Jesus (John 7:15). In fact, most Jewish boys received an education so that they could read the Scriptures. Moreover, John came from wealth (his father owned a large fishing business—Luke 5:3,10; Mark 1:20). Therefore, he most likely received an excellent education.

Recent studies also suggest that Palestinian Jews were often able to speak both Aramaic and Greek.⁷ With the discovery of Greek coins, Judean-Greek documents, Greek names on burial inscriptions, and even a Greek-speaking synagogue, it’s not unreasonable to think John wrote this Gospel. These pieces of evidence don’t even take into account that John had several decades in Greek-speaking Ephesus to brush up on his Greek before writing his Gospel.

The Gospel According to John

Based on the external and internal evidence, John the son of Zebedee is the author of the fourth Gospel. While the objections cannot be ignored, none of them undermine the evidence in favor of traditional authorship.

Why Don’t the Synoptic Gospels Mention Lazarus?

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is one of the most well-known stories in the Gospels. Yet, for some reason, Matthew, Mark, and Luke don’t mention it. This head-scratching absence has raised a lot of doubts about its historicity. After all, this story seems too significant to leave out. As you can imagine, skeptics think John made it up. But could there be a good reason that the earlier Gospels left it out?

While it does seem strange that the synoptic writers would leave out this story, I believe we have a good explanation for its absence in what Gerd Theissen calls “protective anonymity.”[1]

Pre-Markan Tradition

Protective anonymity is based on the premise that a pre-Markan tradition stands behind the passion narrative in Mark 14-16. In other words, while Mark composed much of his Gospel based on Peter’s eyewitness testimony, the last few chapters came from another source that dates much closer to the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection. While biblical scholars are somewhat divided on this issue, the evidence tilts in favor of this pre-Markan source.

For example, scholars have long noted that Mark didn’t arrange the pericopes (e.g., miracles, parables, proclamations, narratives, exorcisms, etc.) chronologically. Rather, he ordered them in ways that suited his purposes. In fact, Matthew and Luke’s orders often diverge from Mark’s. Meaning, Mark could have easily rearranged the stories in a different order without impacting the overall message. However, when one gets to the passion narrative, the entire account presupposes a chronological order. Instead of one short story after another, the entire passion account (ch. 14-16, possibly ch. 11-16) flows like one continuous narrative. Certainly, Mark could have composed these last few chapters himself. But a few features from the text suggest that it was composed earlier and in Jerusalem.

One reason for adopting this view is that Mark mentions “the high priest” but never mentions him by name (Caiaphas). This phrasing would be akin to saying “the president” instead of President Biden. If I had a conversation with someone today and mentioned “the president,” no one would think I was talking about Trump, Obama, Bush, or any other previous president. They would assume I was talking about our current president. The same could be said for Caiaphas. Since he ruled till AD 37, the passion narrative that merely refers to him as “the high priest” must have been in circulation before his tenure ended.

Another reason for thinking that the passion account is early and from Jerusalem is the mention of “James the younger” in Mark 15:40. Theissen argues, “It would have been particularly necessary in Jerusalem to distinguish a ‘James the younger’ (or ‘the less’) from the ‘older’ (or ‘greater’).”[2] He suggests that “James the younger” was the brother of Jesus, and “James the older” was the Son of Zebedee. If Theissen is right, then the need to distinguish the two James would have been necessary in Jerusalem where “James the younger” was overseer of the church. Furthermore, the need to distinguish the two James would only be necessary until AD 44 when “James the older” died.

One more reason for thinking the passion narrative is a pre-Markan tradition is the mention of “the insurrection” in which Barabbas was involved (Mark 15:7). Jews, however, were familiar with a significant uprising led by Theudas in AD 44-45 (Acts 5:36).[3] One would think that if Mark wrote this passion account in the 50s or 60s, he would have been careful to distinguish which uprising Barabbas participated in. The mere mention of “the insurrection” suggests that this narrative pre-dates the insurrection led by Theudas in AD 44-45.

Protective Anonymity

With the pre-Markan tradition established, we are now in a position to answer the question of why Lazarus is never mentioned. Theissen argues that people are left anonymous or unmentioned because if their names got back to the Jerusalem authorities, they could be implicated as accomplices in Jesus’ “revolt.”

Consider the person who cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant in Mark 14:47. Mark never mentions him by name. He simply notes that “one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.” Mark doesn’t even make it clear if this is one of Jesus’ disciples. It’s not until John’s Gospel—written around AD 90—that we discover that the identity of this sword-wielding character is none other than Peter himself. John no longer feels the need to protect Peter’s identity because he was long dead by now. Since Peter most likely would have faced arrest for this attempted murder on the high priest’s servant, this early pre-Markan tradition kept him anonymous.

Another case of protective anonymity is the woman who anointed Jesus in Mark 14:3-9. Her actions would undoubtedly make her an accomplice in Jesus’ messianic “revolt.” Bauckham remarks,

At the time when this tradition took shape in this form in the early Jerusalem church, this woman would have been in danger were she identified as having been complicit in Jesus’ political subversive claim to messianic kingship. Her danger was perhaps even greater than that of the man who attacked the servant of the high priest, for it was she who had anointed Jesus as Messiah.[4]

It’s worth noting that Judas immediately betrayed Jesus to the authorities following the anointing. Once again, it’s John who reveals the identity of this woman as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, when she no longer needed protective anonymity.

Lazarus

If we are right to believe that the pre-Markan passion narrative intentionally kept people anonymous for their protection, we could understand how it would leave Lazarus out of the story altogether. After all, John 12:10-11 notes that “the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.” That is to say, Lazarus was a thorn in the side of the Jewish leaders because he was convincing Jews to become Christians by simply walking around. Because Jewish leaders continued to persecute the early church for decades, this early passion narrative had to leave him out of the story altogether for his own protection.

However, some have argued that perhaps Lazarus does sneak into Mark’s passion narrative after all. During Jesus’ arrest, we read, “And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked” (Mark 14:51-52). Without sounding too immature, I laugh every time I read about this anonymous streaker. Yet, this account is more significant than it may appear. With all the commotion going on (Peter had just whacked off someone’s ear), none of the disciples probably observed this scene. They had already “left him and fled” (Mark 14:50). Therefore, this story must go back to the eyewitness testimony of the streaker himself.

Again, his anonymity was necessary for his protection. After all, the only reason he must have fled naked is because he resisted the guards. Once they grabbed him, he was able to slip away, leaving his linen cloth behind. Undoubtedly, the Jewish leaders would have been looking to arrest this man who fought against them.

So who was this man? Some have argued that it was Lazarus. Wanting to still acknowledge Lazarus’ importance, this early account allows him this brief and very comical appearance. Others have argued that this person is John Mark himself. Like Alfred Hitchcock appearing in one of his own films or an artist painting himself into his picture, Mark inserted himself into the narrative. I don’t think we can know for sure. Although I kind of hope it’s Mark. That just makes for a better story.

[1] Gerd Theissen, The Gospels in Context.

[2] Gerd Theissen, The Gospels in Context, 178.

[3] Josephus, Antiquities, 20.97-98.

[4] Richard Bauckham, Jesus, and the Eyewitnesses, 2^nd ed. 290.

Yes, Bart Ehrman, Jesus is Yahweh

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

Bart Ehrman is a professor of religious studies at UNC-Chapel Hill in North Carolina. He is well known for his best-selling popular-level books that are critical of the core tenets of evangelical Christianity and in particular the reliability of the New Testament sources. Frequent readers of my articles will already know that Ehrman is not the most careful scholar when it comes to his utilization of ancient sources. A few days ago, Ehrman published two blog posts (here and here) on his website, claiming that the idea that Jesus is Himself Yahweh is a recent doctrinal innovation, completely foreign to the New Testament and the ancient church. Ehrman even goes so far as to say that this is the view of only “some conservative evangelical Christians” and that “I’ve never even heard the claim (let alone a discussion of it) until very recently.” Furthermore, Ehrman adds,

I, frankly, had never even heard of such a thing until six years ago. Maybe I wasn’t listening in Sunday School, or maybe I was sleeping through those particular lectures at Moody Bible Institute; or maybe … Nah, I don’t think so. If someone knows differently, please let me know. But I can’t think of any ancient Christian source that talks about Jesus as Yahweh himself. Jesus is the son of Yahweh.

Ehrman asserts that,

The first time I heard someone authoritatively say that Jesus was Yahweh and that this was standard Christian teaching was in a debate I had with Justin Bass in 2015 – you can listen to it on Youtube. I can’t remember when in the debate he said it but he made some comment about Jesus being Yahweh, and I was floored. I thought: theologians have never called Jesus Yahweh!

For a scholar of Ehrman’s stature to be uninformed regarding Christian orthodox teaching on such a fundamental matter is absolutely astounding. In this article, I respond to Ehrman’s articles and show that he is profoundly mistaken about the teaching of the New Testament and the ancient church.

Early Christian Theologians

Ehrman wonders “if there are any early Christian theologians who have this view.” Yes, there are plenty. For example, Justin Martyr (~100-165), in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, wrote[1],

…now you will permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts…

I do not know how one can get much clearer than that. Irenaeus (~130-202) likewise states[2],

For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth.

Ignatius of Antioch (~50-108) also affirmed Christ’s full deity. For example, in his epistle to the Ephesians, he wrote[3],

We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin.

I could continue to quote early church fathers for quite some time, but this should suffice to show that the view that Jesus is Yahweh, the eternal God, is not a new idea but rather goes back to the ancient church. I will now turn to Ehrman’s comments on the New Testament.

Is the Name Yahweh Found in the New Testament?

Ehrman states that,

Of course, the name Yahweh is not found in the NT at all, since it is a Hebrew word, and the NT is written in Greek. The NT does not give God a personal name.

This is obviously true since the New Testament was written in Greek, not in Hebrew. However, the New Testament does use an equivalent word — indeed, the word that is substituted for the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible. This word is κύριος, which is translated “Lord” in our English Bibles. Of course, it is true that this word had a broader range of meaning than simply denoting Yahweh (for example, Paul uses it of earthly masters — see Eph 6:5). However, the meaning of Greek words, as intended by the original author, can be shaved down through an examination of context. For example, Hebrews 1:10-12 quotes from Psalm 102:25-27:

You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; 11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, 12 like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.

Verse 10 uses the word κύριος, which evidently (given the fact that the author is quoting an Old Testament Psalm concerning the Lord God) is intended to denote Yahweh. What makes this text especially noteworthy for our purposes here is that the author of Hebrews applies the words of this Psalm to Jesus. Indeed, this Hebrew Biblical text is one of several applied to Jesus in Hebrews 1, as the author compares and contrasts the exaltation of the Son with that of the angelic beings.

To take another example, consider Paul’s quotation of Joel 2:32 in Romans 10:13: “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” Again, this alludes to an Old Testament text that concerns Yahweh. But Paul introduces this text only a few verses after Paul declared that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9). The implication here is that the κύριος of verse 9 is the same referent as in verse 13 — namely, Jesus. In other words, Jesus is the Yahweh of Joel 2:32, on whose name we are to call. This point is drawn out even more explicitly by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:2: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” This text again clearly alludes to Joel 2:32, except the Lord (κύριος) upon which we are to call is none other than Jesus Christ.

Another example is found in 1 Peter 2:2-4:

2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious…

Verse 3 quotes from Psalm 34:8 (“Oh, taste and see that the LORD [Yahweh] is good!”). However, verse 4 identifies the κύριος of Psalm 34:8 as none other than Jesus Himself (the nearest antecedent of the pronoun “him” in verse 4 is “the Lord” from verse 3). This implies that Jesus is the Yahweh of Psalm 34:8.

Yet a further example can be found in 1 Peter 3:14-15:

14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy The Holy…

Admittedly, there exists some level of ambiguity about the original reading of verse 15, since the majority of later manuscripts read θεόν (“God”) instead of Χριστόν (“Christ”). However, Bruce Metzger notes that[4],

The reading Χριστόν, however, is strongly supported by early and diversified external evidence…as well as by transcriptional probability, the more familiar expression (κύριον τὸν θεόν) replacing the less usual expression (κύριον τὸν Χριστόν). The omission of τὸν Χριστόν in the patristic treatise de Promissionibus attributed to Quodvultdeus must be due to accidental oversight on the part of either translator or copyist.

If (as seems likely) the original reading is indeed “Christ the Lord”, then we have another example of an Old Testament text that concerns Yahweh being applied to Jesus. Compare 1 Peter 3:14-15, above, with Isaiah 8:12-13:

12 “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. 13 But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy.

Isaiah 8:12 is quoted by 1 Peter 3:14. Isaiah 8:13 is quoted by 1 Peter 3:15, except instead of calling his readers to honor the Lord of hosts as holy (as Isaiah did), Peter implores his readers to honor Christ the Lord as holy. Thus, we have yet another instance of the title κύριος (which is properly interpreted here as a substitute for the Hebrew tetragrammaton) being applied to Jesus.

I could continue in a similar vein for a considerable time. However, I trust that this is sufficient to dispel Ehrman’s contention that the New Testament does not use the name Yahweh and therefore never calls Jesus Yahweh.

Does Psalm 110 Preclude Jesus from Being Yahweh?

Ehrman continues,

When Christians wanted to find another divine being in the OT to identify as Christ, they went to passages like Psalm 110: “The LORD said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” Based on what I said in my previous post, you can reconstruct who is talking to whom here (notice the first LORD is in caps and the second not): “YHWH said to Adonai….”

Ehrman’s entire argument here implicitly presupposes Unitarianism. If the doctrine of the Trinity is true, then there is no problem with persons within the being or essence of Yahweh being distinguished from one another and even participating in conversation with each other. Nor is there a problem with the Father exalting the Son, since the Son had previously voluntarily humbled Himself through His incarnation and death on the cross. No Trinitarian is identifying the Son with the Father. Rather, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each distinctive persons who together totally share the essence of Yahweh, each possessing the divine attributes fully and completely.

Ehrman’s representation of the words used in Psalm 110:1 is not quite accurate, since it does not say that “YHWH said to Adonai…” but rather “YHWH said to Adoni.” This difference make look trivial (especially as these two words are distinguished only by a difference in Masoretic vowel pointing) but it is actually important. The title “Adonai” is exclusively used as a divine title (essentially as a synonym for YHWH). In fact, the ancient Hebrews would, instead of pronouncing the divine name, say “Adonai” instead. The word “Adoni”, by contrast, is simply the possessive form of the Hebrew word “Adon”, which means “Lord” or “Master” (the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word κύριος). The word can be used of Yahweh, depending on the context, but it is not exclusively reserved for Yahweh. The upshot of this is that, though many Christians have used this text to argue for a plurality of divine persons (and, indeed, the deity of Christ), the reality is that any such argument based on this text is going to require more work and nuance than it often receives. I do not believe this text to be as conclusive as the previous texts discussed in the foregoing. However, it is, I would argue, certainly suggestive as we shall see. The context sheds some light on the intended referent of verse 1. In verse 5-7 of Psalm 110, we read,

The Lord is at your right hand; he will crush kings on the day of his wrath. He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. He will drink from a brook along the way, and so he will lift his head high.

In the Hebrew, verse 5 does indeed identify the one seated at Yahweh’s right hand as none other than Adonai, a word used only ever of deity. Thus, Psalm 110 implies a plurality of divine persons within the Godhead. One possible reply to this is that Psalm 110:5 is merely the reversal of Psalm 110:1. Just as David’s Lord sits at the right hand of Yahweh, so also Yahweh is at the right hand of David’s Lord. For instance, in Psalm 109:31, Yahweh is at the right hand of the needy one, and in Psalm 16:8, Yahweh is at the right hand of the Psalmist David. The problem with this argument is that if one continues reading Psalm 110, it is clear that the “He’s” of verses 5-7 all refer back to Adonai, and in verse 7 this individual is said to drink from a brook — a human function. Thus, the individual seated at Yahweh’s right hand in Psalm 110 appears to be a divine-human person.

Furthermore, Jesus Himself Jesus makes the argument that “David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?” (Mk 12:37). The point Jesus is making is that none of David’s descendants could be greater than David. This, then, cannot be referring to an ordinary human descendent of David. The question is thus raised as to what sort of Lord this could possibly be referring to. But we can go even further than that. David’s Lord also cannot be any human king, since in Psalm 2:10-12 all kings are to be subject to David, and Psalm 89:26-27 tells us that,

I will appoint him [David] to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.

It also cannot be a mere angelic creature since angels serve God’s elect and are servants themselves (c.f. Heb 1:7, 14; Rev 19:10 and 22:8-9). Who, then, is left? God.

The Angel of the Lord

Ehrman notes that Christians (such as Justin Martyr in the second century) have often identified the angel of Yahweh, in the Hebrew Bible, as a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ. He writes,

I wonder if the confusion among some evangelicals about the Christian understanding of Christ (when they say he is Yahweh) is because the “Angel” of the LORD is so fully representative of YHWH himself that he is sometimes called YHWH after he is clearly identified NOT as YHWH but his angel. Why would he be called YHWH if he was YHWH’s messenger? It would be kind of like if a messenger of the king comes to you and orders you to do something, you tell your neighbors that the “king” has told you to do something. Well, actually, his messenger did, but he was so fully representative of the king that his words were the king’s.

This interpretation, however, fails to account for the fact that various people throughout the Hebrew Bible marvel at the fact that they have seen the angel of Yahweh and yet their lives have been spared (people aren’t supposed to be able to see Yahweh and live — Exodus 33:20). For example, consider the words of Jacob after having wrestled with a man in Genesis 32, one who is identified in Hosea 12:4 as the angel of Yahweh: “So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.’” Further support for the individual with whom Jacob wrestled being the angel of Yahweh comes from the parallel between Genesis 32:29 and Judges 13:18, in which the man and the angel of Yahweh respectively say, upon being asked for their name, “Why do you ask my name?”

Another occurrence of this is in Judges 6 where we read of Gideon’s encounter with the angel of Yahweh. In verses 22-24, we read,

22 Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD. And Gideon said, “Alas, O LORD God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” 23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” 24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and called it, The LORD Is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

Yet a further instance occurs in Judges 13, which records the appearance of the angel of Yahweh to Manoah and his wife to announce the birth of Samson. In verse 21-22, we read,

21 The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. 22 And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.”

Thus, we see that numerous texts (and there are plenty that I have not mentioned) bear witness to the deity of the angel of Yahweh. While Ehrman is correct to note that many of these texts also distinguish the angel of Yahweh from God, this is very consistent with a Trinitarian paradigm that views the messenger of God to be Yahweh and yet in another sense somehow distinct from Yahweh.

Ehrman’s interpretation of the angel of the Lord passages also fails to account for the parallelism observed in Genesis 48:15-16, in which we read of Jacob’s blessing of the sons of Joseph. He said,

15 “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, 16 the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, may he bless the boys…”

Here, we see a poetic parallelism where the angel is identified as God. In fact, in the Hebrew, verse 16b uses the singular pronoun, “may he bless the boys”, implying that the angel and God are one and the same.

I discuss the subject of the angel of the Lord in much more detail here and here.

The Carmen Christi

Ehrman next turns his attention to the Christ poem in Philippians 2:5-11. He writes,

When Christ is exalted after his death, God gives him “the name that is above every name” so that all creation will worship and confess him. That is a reference to Isaiah 45 where Yahweh alone has the name above every name so that all worship and confess him alone.

Possibly these modern Christians are thinking that Christ, therefore, must have been given the name YHWH, and therefore he *is* YHWH. But the passage doesn’t seem to mean that. The ultimate LORD of all, YHWH, is the one who *gives* Jesus the name that is above all others. It’s worth noting that in this very passage, when God gives Jesus his “name,” it does not mean that he’s made a name switch for Jesus. On the contrary, the passage says that the name to which everyone will bow in worship and confess is *Jesus*! (Not YHWH): “That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess.” Jesus’ own name is exalted.

This, however, is not the argument at all. I do not interpret the “name” of verse 9 to be a personal name. Rather, this in my opinion is best understood as referring to Christ’s reputation that He received as a consequence of His humiliation and death upon the cross.

There are at least three mutually supporting arguments for Christ’s deity that may be adduced from this text. First, this text is chiefly concerned with Christ’s humility, since “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped” (Phil 2:6). This only makes sense if Christ is equal in status to God, since one is not commended for humility for not exalting oneself to a higher status than one had a right to. If I refrain from overthrowing the monarchy and exalting myself as king, I am not due praise for my humility in so restraining myself. The text, then, is best understood if Christ voluntarily laid aside the divine privilege that was rightfully His. This reading is also supported by the Greek. Indeed, the construction is known as a double accusative of object-complement. Daniel Wallace explains that[5],

An object-complement double accusative is a construction in which one accusative substantive is the direct object of the verb and the other accusative (either noun, adjective, participle, or infinitive) complements the object in that it predicates something about it.

In this case, the verb is οὐχ ἡγήσατο (“did not count”), the direct object is τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ (“equality with God”) and the object complement is ἁρπαγμὸν (“a thing to be grasped”). Thus, the relationship between the direct object and the object complement is rather like an equal’s sign. In other words, Jesus did not count equality with God to be a thing to be grasped (ἁρπαγμὸν). Furthermore, Roy Hoover has argued that this is in fact an idiomatic expression, which “refers to something already present and at one’s disposal. The question… [is] whether or not one chooses to exploit something.”[6] Hoover observes that in every instance where this noun ἁρπαγμός is the object compliment in a construction such as this (where the verb is one of regarding or seeing or consideration), it always means something like an exploitable advantage. Thus, argues Hoover, one could reasonably translate this text to be saying that Christ did not regard being equal with God as something to take advantage of.

A second consideration is that Paul uses the Greek word μορφῇ in verse 6 to describe Christ being in the form of God and uses this exact same word in verse 7 to describe Christ taking the form of a servant. This implies that Christ was in the form of God in the same sense as He took upon Himself the form of a servant. Since Christ was very literally a servant, “being born in the likeness of men” (v. 7b), it follows that Christ was also literally God.

Third, Ehrman rightly points out that verses 10-11 allude to Isaiah 45:23, in which we read, “To me [that is, Yahweh] every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.” However, in the context of Philippians 2:10-11, every knee is bowing and every tongue swearing allegiance to Jesus. Indeed, that is what is meant by confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord (κύριος), which literally means master.

Conclusion

To conclude, contrary to Ehrman’s assertions, the view that Jesus is Yahweh has been the orthodox Christian position for nearly two millennia, and it is taught in the New Testament. Ehrman claims that the name Yahweh is never used in the New Testament and so could not be applied by the New Testament authors to Jesus. However, the New Testament does use the equivalent Greek term κύριος. Although this word is also used to describe earthly masters, the word is often used to denote Yahweh when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, and often these texts are explicitly applied to the person of Jesus. Ehrman’s argument from the New Testament’s usage of Psalm 110 presupposes a Unitarian paradigm. Though Ehrman argues that the angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible is only the agent of Yahweh who is invested with divine authority, this argument collapses on the basis of the various exclamations of surprise, following an encounter with the angel of the Lord, that one has survived despite having seen God face-to-face. Finally, Ehrman is mistaken about Philippians 2:5-11, which is best read as indicating that Christ voluntarily laid aside the divine privilege that was rightfully His in order to take upon Himself the form of a servant.

Footnotes

[1] Justin Martyr, “Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, a Jew,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 212.

[2] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 449.

[3] Ignatius of Antioch, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 52–200.

[4] Bruce Manning Metzger, United Bible Societies, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th Rev. Ed.) (London; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), 621–622.

[5] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 182.

[6] Roy W. Hoover, “The Harpagmos Enigma,” Harvard Theological Review 64 (1971).

Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead? A Historian, an Atheist, a Skeptic, a Theologian, and an Ex-Con Weigh In

CrossExamined

By Alisa Childers

It’s that time of year again—the time when Christians come together to celebrate the pinnacle of our faith, the resurrection of Jesus. It’s also the time when news outlets like Time, the Discovery Channel, and Newsweek unleash their skepticism about Christianity, the Bible, and the resurrection. It can be confusing to wade through the various historical evidences, personal beliefs, and opinions floating around in scholarship and the blogosphere. Here are quotes from several sources who all have unique qualifications and an interesting take on the evidence:

1. The Historian

Gary Habermas is an American historian, and the Distinguished Research Professor of Apologetics and Philosophy at Liberty University. He is considered to be one of the foremost scholars on the resurrection of Jesus. While researching the resurrection, he combed through the works of both secular and Christian scholars. He wrote:

I recently completed an overview of more than 1,400 sources on the resurrection of Jesus published since 1975. I studied and catalogued about 650 of these texts in English, German, and French. Some of the results of this study are certainly intriguing. For example, perhaps no fact is more widely recognized than that early Christian believers had real experiences that they thought were appearances of the risen Jesus. A critic may claim that what they saw were hallucinations or visions, but he does not deny that they actually experienced something.[1]

There is a virtual consensus among scholars who study Jesus’ resurrection that, subsequent to Jesus’ death by crucifixion, his disciples really believed that he appeared to them risen from the dead.[2]

2. The Atheist

Gerd Ludemann is a German New Testament scholar, historian, and atheist. He was once a professing Christian, but walked away from his faith when he became convinced that very little of what is contained in the New Testament is historically reliable. Even so, he wrote:

It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’s death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.[3]

3. The Skeptic

Bart Ehrman is the Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is one of the most respected scholars in the field of New Testament studies—and he is agnostic. About the resurrection of Jesus, he wrote:

Historians, of course, have no difficulty speaking about the belief in the resurrection of Jesus, since this is a matter of public record. It is a historical fact that some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution. We know some of these believers by name; one of them, the Apostle Paul, claims quite plainly to have seen Jesus alive after his death. Thus, for the historian, Christianity begins after the death of Jesus, not with the resurrection itself, but with the belief in the resurrection.[4]

In a recent blog post he wrote:

The most important thing to stress is that there are two historical realities that simply cannot be denied. The followers of Jesus did claim that Jesus came back to life. If they had not claimed that, we would not have Christianity. So they did claim it. Moreover, they did claim that they knew he rose precisely because some of them saw him alive again afterward. No one can doubt that.[5]

4. The Theologian

The type of historical evidence above caused leading New Testament scholar, historian, and theologian N.T. Wright to conclude:

As a historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him.[6]

5. The Ex-con

Charles Colson, who once served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon, famously went to prison for his involvement in the Watergate scandal in the early 70’s. He became a Christian in 1973, largely due to the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. One detail regarding Watergate was similar to the resurrection: in both cases, 12 men claimed something that would affect world history. In the case of Watergate, it only took two weeks for them to crack under pressure:

The real cover-up, the lie, could only be held together for two weeks, and then everybody else jumped ship in order to save themselves. Now, the fact is that all that those around the President were facing was embarrassment, maybe prison. Nobody’s life was at stake.

But what about the disciples? Twelve powerless men, peasants really, were facing not just embarrassment or political disgrace, but beatings, stonings, execution. Every single one of the disciples insisted, to their dying breaths, that they had physically seen Jesus bodily raised from the dead. Don’t you think that one of those apostles would have cracked before being beheaded or stoned? That one of them would have made a deal with the authorities? None did.

Jesus is Lord: That’s the thrilling message of Easter. And it’s an historic fact, one convincingly established by the evidence—and one you can bet your life upon. Go ahead researchers—dig up all the old graves you want. You won’t change a thing. He has risen.[7]

Even the atheists and skeptics confirm that Jesus’ disciples claimed and believed that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. History tells us that they were willing to suffer and die for that belief. It’s reasonable to confidently agree with what the church has affirmed over the centuries—”Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!”[8]

References:

[1] Gary R. Habermas & Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2004) p. 60 (Emphasis mine)

[2] Ibid., p. 49

[3] Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus?, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995) p. 80

[4] Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford, 2004) p. 234 (Emphasis mine)

[5] Bart Ehrman, “Questions on the Resurrection and My Personal Spiritual Experiences: Readers’ Mailbag” www.ehrmanblog.org, March 24, 2017, accessed April 6, 2017

[6] N.T. Wright, “The New Unimproved Jesus,” Christianity Today (September 13, 1993), p. 26 (Cited by William Lane Craig, “The Resurrection of Jesus” www.reasonablefaith.org, accessed April 6, 2017)

[7] Charles Colson, “An Unholy Hoax?” www.epm.org, March 29, 2002, accessed April 6, 2017.

[8] John 11:25-26

Simon of Cyrene, Cleopas, and the Eyewitness Testimony of the Gospels

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

Modern critics doubt that eyewitnesses stand behind the four Gospels. In fact, they argue that the first followers of Jesus told others about Jesus who told others about Jesus who told others about Jesus, and eventually someone wrote all those stories down—much like the game of telephone. According to this theory, anonymous figures wrote the Gospels in places like Turkey, Greece, and Rome.

Biblical scholar Richard Bauckham begs to differ. One of the more brilliant ways Bauckham pushed back against the form criticism of the early twentieth century was to highlight that the names in the Gospels correspond to the names in the broader Palestinian record. In other words, one would expect a slew of unrealistic Palestinian names (like Marcus or Gaius) if someone was merely writing hearsay from across the Roman Empire. This point is especially true when one considers that the Jewish names across the Empire were radically different from the Palestinian Jewish names. The fact that the Gospels give realistic names suggests that the accounts can be traced back to Palestine itself.

But Bauckham also looks at the names from a different angle to provide further support for eyewitness testimony. He argues that the presence of certain names seems highly unusual unless they were the eyewitness sources behind their stories.

Anonymous by Default

Most of the people in the Gospels are anonymous. Besides the disciples, government officials, and a few key figures, just about everyone else remains anonymous. Allow me to give you some samples from Luke:

Luke 5:12 — “While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy.”
Luke 6:6 — “On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered.”
Luke 7:2 — “Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him.”
Luke 8:43 — “And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.”
Luke 10:25 — “And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’”
Luke 13:14 — “But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, ‘There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.’”

I could list more. By my count fifty-one anonymous characters appear in Luke. This does not count large groups such as the five thousand or the seventy-two. Nor does this list include generic statements where Jesus heals “many” or interacts with a crowd.

Since obscure characters are usually anonymous, we should take notice when one of them gets mentioned.

Simon of Cyrene

Mark mentions three obscure figures in Mark 15:21. He notes, “And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.” It’s noteworthy that none of these three figures show up anywhere else in the narrative. Moreover, while Matthew and Luke also mention Simon of Cyrene, they leave out his two sons. What best explains this phenomena?

Church tradition suggests that Mark’s Gospel is more or less Peter’s account of things. Yet, Peter wasn’t in all places at all times. In fact, he drops out of the narrative in the previous chapter. He’s presumably in hiding after Jesus’ arrest. So how would Peter or Mark know that Simon carried Jesus’ cross? Who’s testimony stands behind this story?

It most certainly has to be Simon of Cyrene. Furthermore, the mention of his two sons Alexander and Rufus suggests that Mark expected his readers to know who they were. In fact, if Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome (as tradition suggests), it’s reasonable to believe that the church heard this story from Alexander and Rufus themselves. Think about it. Alexander and Rufus must have heard the story dozens of times from their dad. And now as they relayed this same story to the church in Rome, imagine how proud they must have felt. That’s our dad! He carried Jesus’ cross! Since neither Matthew nor Luke mention these two sons, we can assume that their audiences (places other than Rome) would not have been familiar with them.

Cleopas

After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus appears to two individuals on the road to Emmaus — Cleopas and an anonymous figure. Why mention Cleopas and not the other? The story obviously does not require him to be named.

The most reasonable explanation is that Cleopas must be the source for this specific account. Again, none of the disciples were present. Luke himself was not present. But as Luke mentioned in his prologue, he spoke with different eyewitnesses before compiling his Gospel account (Luke 1:1-3). Cleopas was one such eyewitness.

Also worth noting is that Cleopas was probably Jesus’ uncle. Elsewhere, John reports, “but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (John 19:25). While the spelling is different in John, Bauckham argues that “Clopas is a very rare Semitic form of the Greek name Cleopas, so rare that we can be certain this is the Clopas who, according to Hegesippus, was the brother of Jesus’ father Joseph.”[1]

Writing in the early fourth century, church historian Eusebius references Hegesippus’ quote on Clopas. He writes:

After the martyrdom of James and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed, it is said that those of the apostles and disciples of the Lord that were still living came together from all directions with those that were related to the Lord according to the flesh (for the majority of them also were still alive) to take counsel as to who was worthy to succeed James. They all with one consent pronounced Symeon, the son of Clopas, of whom the Gospel also makes mention; to be worthy of the episcopal throne of that parish. He was a cousin, as they say, of the Saviour. For Hegesippus records that Clopas was a brother of Joseph.[2]

According to church tradition, Clopas’ son, Symeon, the cousin of Jesus and James, became the overseer of the church in Jerusalem after James’ martyrdom in AD 62. Thus, we can see why Clopas’ testimony might carry some significant weight in the early church. He was the uncle of Jesus, and his son was a prominent leader in the Jerusalem church.

Names and Eyewitnesses

A few other names also fit this same description (Jairus, Bartimaeus, and Zacchaeus to name a few). By looking at the general pattern in the Gospels, these obscure figures should have remained anonymous. Therefore, their names seem rather significant. I believe Bauckham is correct when he suggests “that many of these named characters were eyewitnesses who not only originated the traditions to which their names are attached but also continued to tell these stories as authoritative guarantors of their traditions.”[3]

Notes

[1] Richard Bauckham, Jesus, and the Eyewitnesses, 47.

[2] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.11.

[3] Richard Bauckham, Jesus, and the Eyewitnesses, 39.

Would Jesus have Really Received a Proper Burial?

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

Critics of Christianity like to suggest that a crucified victim like Jesus never would have received a proper burial. They point to cases where the Romans left victims on the cross for days while birds ate away at their flesh to serve as a reminder to everyone who walked by not mess with Rome. What’s more, the Romans usually tossed the remains into a common grave. The theory goes, in no case would Rome give permission for a crucified victim to receive a proper burial.

It’s no secret that crucifixion was a horrendous experience. It was so terrible, that ancients made up a new word to describe the agony of crucifixion — excruciating. Furthermore, Rome only crucified non-Romans guilty of the worst of crimes. When you consider this, it seems plausible that the Romans would have forbidden Jesus’ burial in a tomb. But just because something is plausible doesn’t mean that’s what actually happened.

Let me illustrate my point. A few years ago, the U.S. Navy Seals carried out a secret mission to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden. It’s standard procedure for United States special forces to capture the enemy and bring them back to a high security prison for interrogation. In this instance, however, they killed Bin Laden on the spot and dumped his body in the ocean. Now let me ask you this: Should future Americans one hundred years from now be skeptical that the U.S. Navy Seals killed Bin Laden since it was implausible — not an ordinary occurrence? No, of course not, because history is filled with implausible events.

Politics and Jewish Customs

So is it inconceivable that Jesus received a proper burial in a tomb? I don’t think so for a few of reasons. First, Pontius Pilate was a politician who wanted to keep his post. As the Roman governor, it was his responsibility to keep the peace in the region — the Pax Romana. Thus, it was in Pilate’s best interest to cooperate with the Jewish leadership and be considerate of their customs lest he instigate the masses. Jewish historian Josephus writes that emperor Tiberius had previously chastised Pilate for being insensitive to the Jewish culture when he placed pagan symbols inside the temple. This act, of course, led to a mob, which ultimately subsided when Pilate removed the artifacts. Pilate was down to his final strike; therefore, he had extra motivation to cooperate with Jewish leadership.

Now John’s gospel tells us why the Jews wanted to take Jesus’ body down from the cross instead of leaving it up indefinitely. We read in John 19:31, “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.” In other words, Pilate needed to honor the Sabbath, and the text indicates that he did just that — although the soldiers didn’t need to break Jesus’ legs. Remember, Emperor Tiberius had already rebuked him once. Pilate needed to navigate this situation carefully.

Archeological Evidence

Second, we have archeological evidence that Pilate allowed crucified victims to receive a proper burial. Before I disclose what that evidence is, let me first describe ancient Jewish burial practices. When a Jewish loved one died, they were wrapped in a cloth, adorned with perfumes and spices, and placed in a tomb. After one year, the family members would return to the tomb to collect the bones of their deceased relative and place them in a smaller box called an ossuary. This allowed for more space in the tombs so that all the deceased family members could be near each other.

Amazingly, in 1968, archaeologists discovered an ossuary of a Jewish man named Yehohanan in the north-eastern quadrant of Jerusalem. This young man noticeably had been crucified. I say noticeably, because a six-inch iron spike was still attached to his heel bone with wood fragments from a cross still attached to the spike (see image above). Experts date the bones to the late 20’s — less than a decade before Jesus’ death and still during Pilate’s rule¹. Here is evidence that Pilate permitted Jewish crucifixion victims to receive a proper burial. It seems, then, that Jesus’ burial in a tomb isn’t without precedent.

Joseph Of Arimathea

Third, each of the Gospel writers indicate that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus’ body in his tomb. This meets the criteria of multiple attestation which states that if multiple, independent sources report an event, it’s more probable that it happened.

More than that, it also meets the criteria of embarrassment because it makes a Jewish council member look more compassionate than Jesus’ disciples. If the gospel writers lied, why would they go out of their way to make themselves look bad? To be sure, they indicate that Joseph was a believer, but why give credit to a member of the council that was responsible for most Christianity’s early persecution? It’s hard to imagine that the early Christians wanted to give credit to the Jewish leaders for anything.

Furthermore, it makes no sense to credit a prominent member of Jewish society whom everyone knew and could be talked to — someone who could debunk the story if it was false. If the disciples lied about the story, it would have been more prudent to give themselves credit for the burial or invent a character that no one could question. The only reason, therefore, the early Christians had for giving credit to Joseph of Arimathea is that he must have, in fact, buried Jesus in his tomb.

Was Jesus Buried in A Tomb?

On the surface, the claim that Jesus wouldn’t have received a proper burial sounds compelling. Yet, when you dig a little deeper and understand more of the context, Jesus’ burial in a tomb makes the most sense of all the data. Therefore, I think we can confidently say that Jesus’ burial is not fake news.

6 Reasons Why Peter Is The Source Of Mark’s Gospel

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning

Many of the early church fathers say that Mark’s Gospel is based on Peter’s preaching. If that’s the case, it’s understandable why an apostle like Matthew or someone like Luke would use Mark as a source. You can’t get much closer to the life of Jesus than through the eyes of Peter.

We’ve looked at what the early church fathers had to say about Mark before. However, skeptics like Bart Ehrman say that this whole idea that Mark based his Gospel on Peter’s preaching stems from Papias, and Papias doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

OK, so now what?

While I don’t think that argument works, what if I said there was a way to bypass this objection? Are there any internal clues in Mark’s Gospel that point to Peter being the source?

In this video, I look at six internal evidences that demonstrate that Peter is Mark’s main source.

When Was the New Testament Considered Scripture? 5 Facts That Point to an Early Canon

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Alisa Childers

One of the most common misconceptions about the New Testament canon (the list of books the church recognizes as authoritative) is that early Christians didn’t have any Scripture until hundreds of years after the life of Christ and the Apostles. The church then examined all the books they had and “picked” the ones they thought should go in the canon. However, this is not how it happened.

Most of the earliest Christians were Jews, so they had the Old Testament Scriptures, but concerning the 27 books of the New Testament, there wasn’t an official canon until three or four hundred years later. That doesn’t mean they didn’t have New Testament Scripture. In fact, the word “canon” does not need to be confined to a formal and final list, but rather reflects “the entire process by which the formation of the church’s sacred writings took place.”[1] Here are 5 facts that point to an early canon:

Fact #1: Early Christians differentiated between canonical and non-canonical books.

Christians divided books into four categories:

Recognized books: Certain books like the four Gospels, Acts, and the letters of Paul were regarded as canonical by early Christians and were not disputed. In the 4th century, church historian Eusebius noted that this core canon had existed in Christianity for some time.[2]
Disputed books: Other books such as James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, were disputed by some, yet accepted by many. These books weren’t officially canonized until later.[3]
Rejected books: Some books were acknowledged to be helpful for spiritual growth, but were not regarded as having the same authority as Scripture. Among these books were the Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul, and the Epistle of Barnabas, to name a few.[4]

Heretical books: A few books were never considered for canonical status and were rejected as outright heresy, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Acts of Andrew and John.[5]

Fact #2: Certain New Testament writings were cited as Scripture not long after they were penned.

The earliest mention of a New Testament book being referred to as Scripture comes from the New Testament itself. That’s as early as it gets! In 1 Timothy 5:18, the Apostle Paul writes:
For the Scripture says: Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain, and, the worker is worthy of his wages.

The first part of Paul’s quotation comes from Deuteronomy 25:4, but the second part comes from the New Testament—Luke 10:7 to be exact. In other words, Paul quotes Luke’s Gospel and calls it “Scripture.”

Another example comes from 2 Peter 3:15-16, where Peter mentions “all of Paul’s letters,” and warns believers to not be deceived by people who twist them “as they do the other Scriptures.” He obviously believed Paul’s epistles were on equal footing with the Old Testament, and expected this to be uncontroversial among his readers.

When the original Apostles were still alive, they discipled younger converts. One such convert, Polycarp, was believed to be a personal disciple of the Apostle John.[6] In the early second century, he wrote a letter to the church at Philippi, referencing the book of Ephesians as “Scripture.”[7]

Fact #3: Church Fathers began to compile lists of New Testament books long before any councils met to finalize the canon.

22 of the 27 books of the New Testament were listed in what is called the Muratorian Fragment, dated from about 180 AD. This list includes everything but Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and possibly 3 John, indicating that the bulk of the New Testament canon was established at an extraordinarily early date.

The first complete list of the New Testament canon is often attributed to Athanasius, around AD 367, but Dr. Michael Kruger argues that all 27 books were affirmed by church father Origen more than a hundred years before that. This means that most likely by the 3rd century, the complete canon was recognized and in place.

Fact #4: Early Christian manuscripts were intended for public reading.

Manuscripts of the Greco-Roman world were made to be appreciated as works of art and not necessarily to be read in public. However, early Christian manuscripts were unique in that they were made for functionality, not beauty. Compared with their cultural counterparts, they had fewer lines per page, an exceptionally large number of reader’s aids, and spaces between sections—all of which suggests they were meant for public reading.
In the early church, and even going back to the Old Testament synagogues, almost all the writings that were read in public worship services were Biblical books. (For example, 2nd-century Christian apologist Justin Martyr tells us that in church gatherings, portions of the Old Testament and the Gospels would be read, followed by a sermon.[8] This indicates that the scribes who copied the manuscripts believed them to be Scripture and intended them to be used as such.[9]

Fact #5: Early Christians primarily used a codex rather than a scroll.

Centuries before it was broadly employed in Greco-Roman culture, early Christians mainly used a codex (similar to a modern book, bound at the spine) rather than a scroll, which was the primary form of a written document in the ancient world. The switch to the codex was sudden, early, and widespread among Christians. This may indicate the church’s need to combine several books into one volume, which only a codex was able to do. Many scholars believe this supports the idea that a canon was beginning to be established as early as the end of the 1st century.[10]
What did the councils actually do?

The councils that eventually convened to established the canon did just that—they finalized the list of books that were already considered canonical and settled a handful of disputes surrounding the remaining texts. However, the evidence suggests that early Christians had a functioning New Testament core canon long before that.

References

[1] Brevard S. Childs, The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction (SCM, 1984) p. 25

[2] Eusebius, Church History, 3.25.1-2

[3] Ibid., 3:25.3

[4] Ibid., 3.25.4

[5] Ibid., 3.25.6

[6] Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics, 32.2; Iranaeus, Against Heresies, 3.3

[7] Polycarp, Epistle to the Phillipians, 12.1

[8] Justin Martyr, The First Apology of Justin, LXVII

[9] Michael J. Kruger, “The Origin and Authority of the New Testament Canon,” Reformed Theological Seminary, 4 August 2016, Lecture #20 (Kruger also notes in his article Were Early Christian Scribes Untrained Amateurs? that this fact is well supported by a number of modern scholars.)

[10] Andreas J. Kostenberger & Michael J. Kruger, The Heresy of Orthodoxy (Crossway, 2010) p. 194-195

Did Jesus Exist? A Critical Appraisal of Richard Carrier’s Interpretation of the Pauline Corpus

4. Is the NT True?, Jesus Christ

By Jonathan McLatchie

Richard Carrier is an ancient historian who has risen to prominence as the lead advocate of Jesus Mythicism, a school of thought that entertains the idea that Jesus of Nazareth may never have existed at all. While Mythicism occupies only the fringes of the scholarly guild, it has gained much better traction on the internet, where poor scholarship can be widely disseminated unchecked. In 2014, Richard Carrier published the first academic defense of Mythicism through Sheffield Phoenix Press Ltd., an academic publisher.[1] Since this volume represents the first scholarly peer-reviewed publication supporting the Mythicist position and is written by an author with a doctoral degree in ancient history, the contents of Carrier’s thesis are deserving of attention.

Carrier examines the extrabiblical evidence of Jesus’ historicity, as well as the sources we find in the New Testament – the gospels, Acts, and epistles. While there is much that could be discussed in regards to Carrier’s handling of these sources, for the purpose of the present paper I will focus primarily on Carrier’s interaction with the Pauline corpus, though – for reasons that will become clear – I will also remark on the book of Acts insofar as it helps to illuminate the proper interpretation of Paul’s letters.

Having rejected the gospels and Acts as reliable documents, Carrier maintains that the letters of Paul are the best sources that bear on the question of the historicity of Jesus. He, however, contends that the letters of Paul fail to unequivocally refer to Jesus as an historical person who walked on earth. Instead, argues Carrier, Paul viewed Jesus as a celestial being, inhabiting a spiritual realm in outer space, in which He was crucified by demons and subsequently resurrected. Carrier’s thesis is in fact not a new idea, but one which was originally proposed by Earl Doherty, to whom Carrier owes much of his material.[2]

I cannot help but point out an irony in Carrier’s advocacy of scholarship that to call fringe would be an understatement. In one of Carrier’s other books, Why I Am Not a Christian, Carrier writes concerning biological evolution, “The evidence that all present life evolved by a process of natural selection is strong and extensive. I won’t repeat the case here, for it is enough to point out that the scientific consensus on this is vast and certain, so if you deny it you’re only kicking against the goad of your own ignorance.”[3] One wonders whether this quote has any relevance to the debate over Mythicism. I could forego interaction with Carrier’s argumentation by noting that “the evidence that Jesus existed is strong and extensive. I won’t repeat the case here, for it is enough to point out that the scholarly consensus on this is vast and certain, so if you deny it you’re only kicking against the goad of your own ignorance.” Presumably, Carrier would – quite rightly – object that I need to interact with his arguments rather than simply make an appeal to scholarly consensus. This is somewhat of an inconsistency on Carrier’s part.

In this paper, I will be primarily interacting with Carrier’s book, On the Historicity of Jesus. However, I may on occasion also draw from other publications by Carrier, including his blog posts, which might serve to illuminate his views or where he may have anticipated some of the objections I raise here.

An Analysis of Carrier’s Exegesis of the Undisputed Pauline Corpus

If Carrier’s position is to withstand scrutiny, Carrier must plausibly interpret those texts in the Pauline corpus that appear to situate Jesus on earth. There are in fact quite a number of details provided by the seven undisputed letters of Paul that give the strong appearance of representing Jesus as having lived on earth. Paul tells us that Jesus was born of the seed of David (Rom 1:3); that He was born of a woman, born under the law (Gal 4:4); that He delivered teachings about divorce (1 Cor 7:10); that He was betrayed (1 Cor 11:23); that He had a last supper (1 Cor 11:23-26); that He had brothers (Gal 1:19; 1 Cor 9:5); that He had twelve disciples (1 Cor 15:5); that He was crucified by the rulers of this age (1 Cor 2:8); and that He was killed by the Jews (1 Thes 2:13-16), and that He was buried. In this section, I will interact with Carrier’s exegesis of several of those texts listed above. I will not discuss Paul’s reference to “Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession,” (1 Tim 6:13), since the authorship of the Pastorals is in scholarly dispute (and space does not permit me to do justice to the relevant literature), though I think a formidable case can be made for Pauline authorship of the Pastoral letters and indeed for all thirteen of Paul’s letters. I agree with Carrier, though for different reasons, that “There is a great deal wrong with how a ‘consensus’ has been reached on the dates and authorship of all these Christian materials, and the conclusions usually cited as established tend to be far more questionable than most scholars let on…I think there is a lot of work here that needs to be properly redone in NT studies, and I’m not alone in thinking that.”[4] I will also not discuss Paul’s reference to Jesus’ teachings on divorce or to the twelve, since I believe those can be interpreted in a manner that is consistent with Carrier’s thesis. The other texts listed above, however, are significant challenges to Carrier’s thesis, and it is to those that I now turn my attention.

Christ of the Seed of David (Rom 1:3): In the prologue of his letter to the Romans, Paul writes, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was born (γενομένου) of the seed (σπέρματος) of David according to the flesh,” (Rom 1:1-3). Carrier observes that, although the verb Paul uses here, γίνομαι, is used of birth by other authors, it is not the word that Paul customarily uses for birth, which is γεννάω (c.f. Rom 9:11; Gal 4:23,29).[5] Carrier argues that γίνομαι is used of God’s manufacture of Adam’s body from clay, and God’s manufacture of our glorified bodies in heaven. Thus, Carrier argues, this is a very odd word for Paul to use if he means to indicate that Jesus was born. Carrier’s proposed interpretation of Romans 1:3 is that God manufactured Jesus out of sperm that was obtained from David’s belly, an event that Carrier suggests took place in outer space.

Carrier has in mind here the Septuagint translation of Genesis 2:7, in which the word ἐγένετο (the aorist indicative form of γίνομαι) appears, describing the man as becoming a living creature. However, the word that is used here to describe the moment of divine manufacture is not ἐγένετο, but rather ἔπλασεν (the third person aorist indicative of the verb πλάσσω). The word ἐγένετο, rather, is used in this context to describe the change of state from non-living to living. Thus, it is not precisely correct to say that ἐγένετο refers to divine manufacture. Paul himself in fact alludes to this text (1 Cor 15:45). While Carrier asserts that Paul does not use γίνομαι to refer to a human birth, this only begs the question, since he must assume that Romans 1:3 and also Galatians 4:4 (which says that Jesus was born – γενόμενον – of a woman and born under the law) are not using the verb in this sense, which is the very question he is attempting to address. Furthermore, according to Liddell and Scott’s Intermediate Greek Lexicon, the verb γίνομαι, in the context of persons, means “to be born.”[6] We can independently verify this to be the case by analysing instances where this verb is used in the Septuagint, in order to discern how the word is used in relation to persons. Genesis 21:3 says, “Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac.” In the Greek Septuagint, the Hebrew word נּֽוֹלַד־ (“was born”) is translated γενομένου. Another example is Genesis 46:27: “And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two.” Again, the Greek Septuagint renders this as γενομένου. Finally, consider Genesis 48:5: “And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are.” Here once again, the Greek Septuagint uses the word γενομένου.

Carrier points out that Paul also uses another verb, γεννάω, to refer to being born. One instance is Romans 9:11: “though they were not yet born (γεννηθέντων) and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls.” The other instance is Galatians 4:23,29: “But the son of the slave was born (γεγέννηται) according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise… But just as at that time he who was born (γεννηθεὶς) according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.” While it may be granted that Paul uses the verb γεννάω to refer to being born, this entails nothing more than that Paul was willing to use synonyms for a word.

Another relevant question is how Paul himself uses the word σπέρματος (usually translated as “seed” or “offspring”) elsewhere. Paul writes, “I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant (σπέρματος) of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin,” (Rom 11:1). Here, Paul uses the exact same word for descendant as he used in Romans 1:3 to describe Jesus as being a descendent of David. If Paul – as he presumably did – believed that his descendance from Abraham entailed that he himself existed on earth, then it stands to reason that he also believed that Jesus existed on earth by virtue of His descendance from David.

To wrap up my analysis of this text, I will note that it is very clear from the dead sea scrolls that there was an expectation of a Davidic Messiah, and, moreover, this is likewise very evident from the Hebrew Bible as well. Therefore, the interpretation that Paul intends to express that Christ was born of the line of David is much more plausible than Carrier’s thesis that it refers to divine manufacture.

Born of a Woman (Gal 4:4): In Galatians 4:4, Paul writes, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born (γενόμενον) of woman, born under the law.” Carrier connects this verse to Galatians 4:24, where Paul writes, “Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.” Thus, Carrier wants to say that Galatians 4:4 is really only saying that Jesus was born of a covenant, not of a literal woman. This, however, is a very odd interpretation, since Paul only introduces the allegory in Galatians 4:21 — 17 verses after Galatians 4:4. In Galatians 4:24, Paul is only indicating that he is about to show an allegorical understanding of the narrative he has just alluded to in Genesis, concerning the births of Ishmael and Isaac. Indeed, the whole point of the allegorical interpretation of the two women is to show the true significance of Jesus’ birth given that Jesus traces his lineage back to Isaac, the child born through trust in God’s promise, and who who was born of the free woman Sarah (Gal 4:23).

But there is an even more damning objection to Carrier’s thesis here. That is, if Carrier’s theory about Galatians 4:4 is correct, then the allegorical interpretation makes sense only if we translate γενόμενον as “born” rather than “manufactured”. Therefore, if Carrier is correct here in his interpretation, he has himself refuted his own response to Romans 1:3, discussed above, that γενόμενον should not be used to refer to being born.

James the brother of the Lord (Gal 1:19): Paul claims personal acquaintance with an individual he refers to as “James the Lord’s brother” (Gal 1:19). Bart Ehrman cites this text as a persuasive piece of evidence for the historicity of Jesus.[7] Carrier observes that “Paul can use the phrase ‘brother of the Lord’ to mean Christian, since all Christians were brothers of the Lord.”[8] An example of this is Paul’s description of Jesus as “the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29). In response to this, Ehrman has pointed out that the phrase “the Lord’s brother” is used in Galatians 1:19 to distinguish James from Peter, who was not the brother of Jesus.[9] However, Carrier addresses this by pointing out that “the only two times [Paul] uses the full phrase ‘brother of the Lord’ (instead of its periphrasis ‘brother’), he needs to draw a distinction between apostolic and non-apostolic Christians.”[10] Thus, Carrier argues that James was not himself an apostle, and Paul uses the expression “the Lord’s brother” so as to distinguish him as a non-apostolic Christian, in contradistinction to Peter. However, this argument is problematic since it seems unlikely that Paul is implying – as would be required on Carrier’s interpretation – that he saw no other Christian, or even no-one of importance, in Jerusalem besides Peter and James. Ernest De Witt Burton concludes that “the phrase must probably be taken as stating an exception to the whole of the preceding assertion, and as implying that James was an apostle.”[11] Moreover, if Paul simply meant spiritual brother, one might expect him to instead write, ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον, εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν ἡμῶν (“I saw none of the other apostles, except James our brother”). Indeed, Peter refers to ἡμῶν ἀδελφὸς Παῦλος (“our brother Paul”) (2 Pet 3:15), so this would be a natural way of speaking of spiritual brotherhood.

Interestingly, Carrier also maintains that “only apostles ‘saw the Lord’, as that is what it was to be an apostle: to be one whom the Lord chose to reveal himself.”[12] But this statement appears to conflict with Carrier’s thesis that James was not an apostle, since Paul indicates that Jesus “appeared to James” (1 Cor 15:7). That this text is referring to the same James who is described in Galatians 1:19 is very likely, especially if, as suggested by many scholars, Paul received this creedal tradition upon his visit to Jerusalem some three years after his conversion, where he met with Peter and James (the very individuals specifically named in the creed) (Gal 1:18-19). Acts indicates that Peter and James were both prominent leaders in the Jerusalem church, and so they are natural for Paul to mention specifically by name. For Carrier to suggest that the individuals named James in Galatians 1:19 and 1 Corinthians 15:7 are different persons is special pleading involving pure speculation to save his theory. The clustering of the names Cephas and James in those two texts also suggests that the same two individuals are in view.

Paul also refers to “the brothers of the Lord” in the context of asking, “Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?” (1 Cor 9:5). Carrier insists that these are no more than cultic brothers of the Lord, as are all baptized Christians (c.f. Rom 8:29). A more natural way for Paul to say this, however, would be, instead of οἱ ἀδελφοὶ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ Κηφᾶς, to write Κηφᾶς καὶ άλλοι ἀδελφοὶ τοῦ κυρίου (“Cephas and the other brothers of the Lord”, since Cephas would be a brother of the Lord also, albeit an apostolic one).

The way it is worded in 1 Corinthians 9:5 suggests that the expression “the brothers of the Lord” refers to specific individuals who have taken for themselves a believing wife, just as the name Cephas refers to a certain individual.

The fact that there exists independent evidence that Jesus had a brother called James also raises the prior probability that the allusion to “James the Lord’s brother” (Gal 1:19) is a reference to biological kinship. Mark reports people in a synagogue in Nazareth saying, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” (Mk 6:3; c.f. Mt 13:55). Mark also reports that one of the women who visited Jesus’ tomb on the first day of the week was “Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses,” (Mk 15:40). That this was Jesus’ mother is supported by the fact that Mark 6:3 reports that Jesus had brothers called James and Joses, likely mentioned in Mark 15:40 for their prominence in the early church. Matthew also indicates that Jesus had a brother called Joseph (Mt 13:55) – who presumably had inherited his father’s name – and Matthew’s account of the visit to the tomb of Jesus indicates that one of the women was “Mary the mother of James and Joseph” (Mt 27:56). Thus, if Paul was identifying some other prominent Christian as “the brother of the Lord” (Gal 1:19), he would probably have taken pains to distinguish Him from this other James, the Lord’s biological brother. Though Carrier might reply that the gospel authors used Paul’s letters as a source and misunderstood his meaning in Galatians 1:19, this is unlikely, since the gospel authors appear to be well informed regarding the presence and identity of those women at the tomb on Easter morning, for reasons that I have documented elsewhere.[13]

The Rulers of This Age (1 Cor 2:7-8): Another text that Carrier must deal with is 1 Corinthians 2:7-8: “But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” At face value, this text certainly appears to indicate that Jesus was crucified on earth by the rulers and authorities of His day. Carrier argues that the “rulers” (ἀρχόντων – the genitive plural form of ἄρχων) here are demonic and spiritual forces rather than human authorities. In support of this, he argues, following Earl Doherty, that 1 Corinthians 2:8 “looks like a direct paraphrase of an early version of the Ascension of Isaiah, wherein Jesus is also the ‘Lord of Glory’, his descent and divine plan is also ‘hidden’ and the ‘rulers of this world’ are indeed the ones who crucify him, in ignorance of that hidden plan (see the Ascension of Isaiah 9.15; 9.32; 10.12,15). It even has an angel predict his resurrection on the third day (9.16), and the Latin/Slavonic contains a verse (in 11.34) that Paul actually cites as scripture, in the very same place (1 Cor. 2.9).”[14] However, that Paul is textually dependent upon the Ascension of Isaiah seems very unlikely, given that scholarly estimates of the date of the Ascension of Isaiah generally place it in the early second century (though estimates range between the late first century and the early third century). If there is any dependence, it is more likely that the Ascension is dependent on Paul, not the other way round.

Carrier claims that “The earliest version in fact was probably composed around the very same time as the earliest canonical Gospels were being written.”[15] However, Carrier offers no argument in support of this contention. Furthermore, no version of the Ascension of Isaiah indicates that Jesus was crucified by demons in the firmament. Maurice Casey, responding to Earl Doherty (from whom Carrier derives this argument) notes that “the devil is held responsible for an evil event. Crucifixions, however, took place on earth, as everyone knew, and there is nothing positive in this (or any other!) text to justify moving the crucifixion of Jesus up there. The subject of ‘will lay their hands upon him and hang him upon a tree (9.14) is obviously people who were there at the time, the conventional story, which had been well known for centuries when this document was being compiled. There is no excuse for Doherty to invent the idea that this was really ‘Satan and his evil angels’ crucifying Jesus up there in the heavens.”[16] Indeed, the Latin 2 version and the Slavonic version state that Jesus was on earth in human form. Starting when Jesus reaches the fifth heaven, Jesus takes the form of the inhabitants of each realm to which he descends. Since Jesus becomes like Isaiah’s form, it is entailed that Jesus takes on a human form and thus he descended down to the earth. Indeed, the Latin 2 and Slavonic versions explicitly state, “And I saw one like a son of man, and he dwelt with men in the world, and they did not recognize him” (11:1). Thus, the Ascension of Isaiah teaches that Jesus did come to earth. Moreover, that Jesus was not crucified by spiritual legions is further supported by the fact that Jesus does not even give a password to the “angels of the air,” because they were “plundering and doing violence to one another,” (Ascension of Isaiah 10:31).

Returning to 1 Corinthians 2:7-8, is Carrier’s interpretation of the rulers of this age plausible? The same word, ἄρχοντες (the nominative plural form), is used in Romans 13:3 to refer to human rulers, so the word ἄρχοντες certainly can refer to human rulers. It is therefore appropriate to evaluate from the context of 1 Corinthians 2:7-8 whether the word there refers to spiritual forces or human authorities, a question that I will take up momentarily.

What about the word αἰών, translated “age” in 1 Corinthians 2:8? Can that word be used in a plain and temporal sense? Absolutely, it can. Indeed, Paul uses the word that way himself in the preceding chapter: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?” (1 Cor 1:20). He also writes in the proceeding chapter, “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise,” (1 Cor 3:18).

Now, what does the context of 1 Corinthians 2:7-8 reveal about the proper identification of the rulers of this age? Carrier correctly observes that there are parallel texts where the rulers are identified as the ones in heaven (Eph 3:9; 6:12). The point here, however, as we shall see, is the difference in context between the texts in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians. Paul, moreover, always uses specific modifying words when he is speaking about spiritual forces.

In any case, let us return to the specific context of 1 Corinthians 2. Paul writes, “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor 1:20). The one who is wise, the scribe, and the debater are clearly human individuals. Paul, moreover, refers to human strength (1:25); “a human perspective,” and things that are “foolish” and “weak” (1:27), “despised in the world” and insignificant (1:28), and to “human wisdom” (2:13). He furthermore adds that his desire is that the Corinthian faith “not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (2:5), and that, though he imparted wisdom, it was “not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away,” (2:6). It is in this context that we arrive at 2:8: “None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” The text continues, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (v. 9). Paul goes on to write, “For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God,” (v. 11) Paul’s primary referent appears to be humans the whole way through, not demonic forces. What Paul writes next supports this case yet further: “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (vv. 12-16, emphasis added).

Thus, while Carrier’s reading of this text is not entirely impossible, by far the more plausible interpretation of this text, it seems to me, is that the rulers being spoken of here are indeed primarily human rulers, not demonic or spiritual forces. However, even if it be conceded that the referent in this text is spiritual forces, this does not support Carrier’s thesis since apocalyptic Jews believed that demons acted through human agency. For example, in the book of Daniel, Gabriel tells Daniel, “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia,” (Daniel 10:13).

On the Night He was Betrayed (1 Cor 11:23-26): Carrier notes, rightly, that the verb παραδίδωμι, often translated in 1 Corinthians 11:23 as “to betray”, can also mean “to hand over.” Indeed, this same verb is even used of Jesus “giving up” His spirit at the time of his death (Jn 19:30). While “to betray” is certainly within this verb’s semantical range, Carrier is correct that this is an interpretive translation, based on the gospel accounts, and that “on the night He was handed over” – a reading that is consistent with Carrier’s thesis – would be an equally permissible translation. It is, however, more likely than not that betrayal is what Paul had in mind. All three of the synoptic gospels use this same verb in reporting Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and in those texts the “handing over” has connotations of betrayal (Mt 10:4; Mk 14:11; Lk 24:7).

Of further relevance here is Paul’s statement, also in this same chapter, that Jesus “took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me,’” (1 Cor 11:23-25). Carrier maintains that the meal being spoken of here is not an actual event that took place on earth, but something entirely hallucinated by Paul.[17] In support of this, he points to Paul’s words that “I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you,” (1 Cor 11:23). Thus, Carrier argues, this is information He has received directly from Jesus, and not from the apostles. However, Alfred Plummer and Archibald Robertson note, “why assume a supernatural communication when a natural one was ready at hand? It would be easy for St Paul to learn everything from some of the Twelve. But what is important is, not the mode of the communication, but the source. In some way or other St Paul received this from Christ, and its authenticity cannot be gainsaid; but his adding ἀπὸ ταῦ Κυρίου is no guide as to the way in which he received it.”[18]

The Jews who killed the Lord Jesus (1 Thes 2:15): Paul writes, “For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!” (1 Thes 2:14-16). Carrier argues that this text is an interpolation, and was not originally part of Paul’s letter. However, not a single sufficiently complete manuscript lacks this text, so the arguments for supposing this text to be an interpolation rest entirely on considerations besides textual critical ones. The reason why some scholars have viewed this text as a scribal interpolation is because, though the epistle was written around 51 A.D., the fall of Jerusalem (70 A.D.) appears to be in view, especially in verse 16b. However, David J. Williams points out that “there is nothing that compels us to identify this passage and, in particular, the second half of verse 16 with that disaster. An alternative suggestion (always assuming that the reference is to something past and not future) contends that Paul had in mind the series of disasters in A.D. 49 involving Jews, including a massacre in the temple (Josephus, War 2.224–227; Ant. 20.105–112) and their expulsion from Rome (Suetonuis, Claudius 25.4; cf. Acts 18:2 and see further, Williams, Acts, pp. 319f.). But in the context of this letter and in the light of 1:10 especially, it may be best to understand the reference as eschatological—the wrath is yet to come upon them. In this case, the aorist (past) tense would be functioning in the prophetic manner to express what is future.”[19] The grounds for presuming this text to be an interpolation, therefore, seem to be quite weak.

Christ was Buried (1 Cor 15:4): The final text I will deal with from the undisputed Pauline corpus is Paul’s reference to Jesus’ burial (1 Cor 15:4). Carrier maintains that the “same popular cosmology, the heavens, including the firmament, were not empty expanses but filled with all manner of things, including palaces and gardens, and it was possible to be buried there.”[20] He notes that “In this worldview, everything on earth was thought to be a mere imperfect copy of their truer forms in heaven, which were not abstract Platonic forms but actual physical objects in outer space.”[21] In support of his contention that in the ancient cosmology it was possible to be buried in the firmament, Carrier claims that “the Revelation of Moses says Adam was buried in Paradise, literally up in outer space, in the third heaven, complete with celestial linen and oils. Thus human corpses could be buried in the heavens.”[22] In a footnote, Carrier cites Revelation of Moses 32-41 (esp. 32.4, 37-40). However, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul is drawing a comparison between what happened to Jesus and what will happen to other people in the day of the Lord. Jesus is described as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep,” (1 Cor 15:20). Indeed, Paul spills much ink in his letters defending the coming general resurrection of the dead in Christ. Paul points to Jesus as an example. In this text, Paul is saying that Jesus is the first of the faithful to die physically and to be resurrected in a transformed spiritual body. Since Jesus is the firstfruits of those who will be resurrected on earth, it seems most probable that, just like all of the other human bodies that were buried on earth, Paul is envisioning Jesus as having been buried on earth. Carrier thus has to engage in special pleading to make an exception in Jesus’ case. Paul’s argument here makes not one lick of sense unless he believed that Jesus had a real flesh and blood body that lived physically on earth.

The Relevance of the Book of Acts to Pauline Interpretation

If Luke-Acts represents the composition of an individual who was a travelling companion of the apostle Paul, then it would be quite odd if Luke and Paul were to have such strikingly different views of who Jesus was. Luke clearly perceived Jesus to have been a man who walked on earth. On Carrier’s thesis, this is particularly surprising given that Paul does not mention or differentiate himself from any alternative school which maintained that Jesus walked on earth. A demonstration of the personal acquaintance of Luke with Paul, therefore, provides confirmatory evidence that the traditional interpretation of Pauline Christology is essentially correct. There exist numerous lines of evidence for Luke being a travelling companion of Paul. Notably, there are the famous “we” passages, beginning in Acts 16, which are best understood as indicating the author’s presence in the scenes he narrates. Craig Keener observes that the “we” pronouns trail off when Paul travels through Philippi, only to reappear in Acts 20 when Paul passes once again through Philippi.[23] This is suggestive that the author had remained behind in Philippi and subsequently re-joined Paul when Paul returned through Philippi.

Luke demonstrates very specific and detailed local knowledge that points to his close familiarity with Paul’s travels. These are all items of information that would not have been general knowledge or easily accessible. I will provide a few examples here to give a flavour of the sort of evidence we are talking about, though other authors, such as Colin Hemer, have documented many more.[24] I will list a handful of instances of the titles of local officials that Luke so effortlessly gets right. Luke gets right the precise designation for the magistrates of the colony at Philippi as στρατηγοὶ (Acts 16:22), following the general term ἄρχοντας in verse 19. Luke also uses the correct term πολιτάρχας of the magistrates in Thessalonica (17:6). He also gets right the term Ἀρεοπαγίτης as the appropriate title for the member of the court in Areopagus (Acts 17:34). He also correctly identifies Gallio as proconsul, resident in Corinth (18:12), an allusion that allows us to date the events to the period of summer of 51 A.D. to the spring of 52 A.D., since that is when Gallio served as proconsul of Achaia. Luke, moreover, uses the correct title, γραμματεὺς, for the chief executive magistrate in Ephesus (19:35), found in inscriptions there. Furthermore, when Luke tells us of the riot in Ephesus, he indicates that the city clerk told the crowd that “There are proconsuls” (Acts 19:38). A proconsul is a Roman authority to whom one might take a complaint. Normally, there was only one. So, why does Luke so casually use the plural term (ἀνθύπατοί) here? It turns out that, just at that particular time, there was in fact two as a result of the assassination by poisoning, in the fall of 54 A.D., of the previous proconsul, Silanus (Tacitus’ Annals 13.1). This, again, is something that would be rather difficult to get right by fluke. Luke even uses the correct Athenian slang word that the Athenians use of Paul in 17:18, σπερμολόγος (literally, “seed picker”), as well as the term used of the court in 17:19 — Ἄρειον Πάγον, meaning “the hill of Ares”. Luke also gets right numerous points of geography, sea routes, and landmarks. For example, he is correct about a natural crossing between correctly named ports (Acts 13:4-5). He names the proper port, Perga, for a ship crossing from Cyprus (13:13). He names the proper port, Attalia, that returning travelers would use (14:25). Luke also correctly names the place of a sailor’s landmark, Samothrace (16:11). He also correctly implies that sea travel was the most convenient means of traveling from Berea to Athens (17:14-15). Furthermore, Colin Hemer notes that “Paul’s staying behind at Troas and travelling overland to rejoin the ship’s company at Assos is appropriate to local circumstances, where the ship had to negotiate an exposed coast and double Cape Lectum before reaching Assos,” (Acts 20:13-14).[25]

Luke even gets the implied location of the island of Cauda correct in Acts 27, despite Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder getting it wrong.[26] And so it goes on and on. Furthermore, numerous passages of Acts artlessly dovetail with Paul’s letters in a way that supports both the truth of Acts as well as the authenticity of the letters.[27] For example, the cause of Barnabas’ strong desire for Mark to accompany him and Paul (eventually leading to them splitting ways) (Acts 15:36-41) is illuminated by a casual reference by Paul to the fact that Barnabas and Mark were cousins (Col 4:10), a detail not supplied by Acts.

Carrier dedicates a chapter of his book to discussing the book of Acts[28], though his arguments in that chapter are extremely disappointing – possibly even more so than his handling of the Pauline corpus. Moreover, Carrier adopts an extremist and indefensible position, namely, that the narrative of the book of Acts is “certainly not what happened, even in outline.”[29] Space does not permit me to discuss all of this chapter’s many problems in detail, but I will offer a few examples.

Carrier complains that “In Acts’ history of the movement, from the moment the flock first goes public, in the very city of Jerusalem itself, at no point in the story (anywhere in all subsequent 27 chapters spanning three decades of history) do either the Romans or the Jews ever show any knowledge of there being a missing body. Nor do they ever take any action to investigate what could only be to them a crime of tomb robbery and desecration of the dead (both severe death penalty offenses), or worse.”[30] However, this is an argument from silence, which is an extremely weak form of argument in historical inquiry.[31] Just because a source makes no mention of an event, even when he might be expected to, it does not provide strong evidence disconfirming the event in question. For example, the first-century Jewish writers Josephus and Philo both fail to mention the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Claudius, though it is mentioned by the Roman historian Suetonius in the second century (Claudius 25.4). There is only one brief mention of the event in any first-century source (Acts 18:2). Despite the silence of these authors, it is widely recognized by historians that this event took place.

A second complaint that Carrier has about Acts is the fact that “all the people associated with a historical Jesus…disappear from the historical record entirely.”[32] As examples, Carrier points out that Pontius Pilate, Joseph of Arimathea, Simon of Cyrene, and his sons, Martha, Lazarus, Nicodemus, and Mary Magdalene are not mentioned at all in the book of Acts. However, this is an argument from silence of the very weakest sort. The silence of the book of Acts on the fate of characters who are significant in the gospels does in no way impugn the historicity of Acts. The book of Acts is about the spread of early Christianity and about certain key apostles, particularly Peter and Paul. There is absolutely no reason whatever to expect Acts to mention every character with a role in the gospels.

Carrier also claims that Luke contradicts Paul’s letters. He writes, “For example, we know Paul ‘was unknown by face to the churches of Judea’ until many years after his conversion (as he explains in Gal. 1.22-23), and after his conversion, he went away to Arabia before returning to Damascus, and he didn’t go to Jerusalem for at least three years (as he explains in Gal. 1.15-18), whereas Acts 7-9 has him known to and interacting with the Jerusalem church continuously from the beginning, even before his conversion, and instead of going to Arabia immediately after his conversion, in Acts he goes immediately to Damascus and then back to Jerusalem just a few weeks later, and never spends a moment in Arabia. And yet we have the truth from Paul himself.”[33] However, a closer inspection of those texts reveals no contradiction at all. Luke tells us that “When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket,” (Acts 9:23-25). How long a period of time is denoted by “…many days…”? In 1 Kings 2:38-39, the phrase “many days” in Hebrew is immediately glossed as three years. But what about the trip to Arabia? Luke is silent on it, but does Luke contradict Paul’s claim that he went to Arabia? I would place Paul’s trip to Arabia within the “many days” of Acts 9:23. Paul also informs us that he “returned again to Damascus (Gal 1:17), so it is not surprising that his subsequent trip to Jerusalem is from Damascus. As for Paul being “still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ” during his travels through Syria and Cilicia (Gal 1:22), this does not seem to me to be a great difficulty at all. Acts 8:1-3 indicates that Paul had been involved in persecuting the church in Jerusalem, to be distinguished from the whole region of Judea. Acts 8:1 in fact indicates that the believers in Jerusalem “were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.” They no doubt would have told other believers with whom they came into contact of the persecution they had experienced under Saul of Tarsus, but it does not follow that the churches in Judea would generally have known him by sight, although they would doubtless have known him by reputation.

Carrier also claims various textual parallels that he argues “are too numerous to be believable history, and reflect the deliberate intentions of the author to create a narrative that served his purpose.”[34] However, even if textual parallels are close enough (and sufficiently improbable by coincidence) to be indicative of authorial intent, it is possible for an author to draw a parallel between real history and some other narrative, and deliberately word his account with the intent of drawing the reader’s mind to that text. The parallels Carrier draws, however, are generally unconvincing. For example, Carrier claims that “Luke makes Paul’s story parallel Christ’s.”[35] The parallels he draws attention to include that “both undertake peripatetic preaching journeys, culminating in a last long journey to Jerusalem, where each is arrested in connection with a disturbance in the temple’, then ‘each is acquitted by a Herodian monarch, as well as by Roman procurators’. Both are also plotted against by the Jews, and both are innocent of the charges brought against them. Both are interrogated by ‘the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin’ (Acts 22.30; Lk. 22.66; cf. Mk 14.55; 15.1), and both know their death is foreordained and make predictions about what will happen afterward, shortly before their end (Lk. 21.5-28; Acts 20.2-38; cf. also 21.4).”[36] These coincidences are not at all sufficiently improbable to indicate authorial intent, in particular since Jesus and Paul both occupied the same socio-political setting.

Furthermore, Carrier subsequently goes on to note that “Paul does almost everything bigger than Jesus: his journeys encompass a much larger region of the world (practically the whole northeastern Mediterranean); he travels on and around a much larger sea (the Mediterranean rather than the Sea of Galilee); and though, like Jesus, on one of these journeys at sea he faces the peril of a storm yet is saved by faith, Paul’s occasion of peril actually results in the destruction of a ship. Likewise, Paul’s trial spans years instead of a single night, and unlike Jesus, veritable armies plot to assassinate Paul, and actual armies come to rescue him (Acts 23.20-24). While Jesus stirs up violence against himself by reading scripture in one synagogue (Lk. 4.16-30), Paul stirs up violence against himself by reading scripture in two synagogues (Acts 13.14-52 and 17.1-5). However, whereas Christ’s story ends with his gruesome death (which had a grand salvific purpose, which could not be claimed for Paul’s ultimate death, and which to end well had to be followed by a once-and-final resurrection, something that could also not be claimed for Paul), Paul’s story ends on a conspicuously opposite note: ‘and he abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling, and received all that went to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him’, something even Jesus could not accomplish when he was in Roman custody (Acts 28.30-31). Thus Paul out-does Jesus even in that.” It appears here that, according to Carrier’s historical methodology, similarities between Jesus’ and Paul’s life are to be taken as evidence against Acts’ historicity, and differences between Jesus’ and Paul’s life are also to be taken as evidence against Acts’ historicity. This is a classic ‘heads I win; tails you lose’ argument.

Carrier also argues for a late date of Acts, following Richard Pervo who dates Acts to the second century A.D.[37] The primary motivation for such a late date is the argument that Luke was dependent upon Josephus’ Antiquities (~93 or 94 A.D.). Craig Keener notes in response to this suggestion that “It would be difficult, however, for Luke to have made direct use of Josephus; Josephus’s Antiquities probably was issued about 93/94, and the copies of its twenty books would have been quite expensive and not readily available soon after their publication to nonelite persons.”[38] Furthermore, he adds, “In the final analysis, it is highly unlikely that Luke depends on Josephus. The strongest argument for dependence is Luke’s citation of Theudas and Judas. Yet it seems unlikely that Luke would have read Jos. Ant. 18–20, used barely any of it, and then gotten wrong the one point most likely drawn from it, if he was dependent at all. The other matters that he could have taken from Josephus were widely known. Josephus did not compose his reports of Theudas or Judas from thin air, and oral or written reports about these leaders would have been available to Luke as well as to Josephus. Josephus completed his Antiquities no earlier than 93 C.E., but Luke’s sometimes positive portrayal of Roman administrators probably would make less sense in the later years of Domitian’s reign.”[39]

Finally, Carrier claims that whereas “everywhere else, the speeches and sermons in Acts are conspicuously historicist; but when Paul is on trial, where in fact historicist details are even more relevant and would even more certainly come up, they are suddenly completely absent. That is very strange; which means, very improbable. The best explanation of this oddity is that Paul’s trial accounts were not wholesale Lukan fabrications but came from a different source than the speeches and sermons Luke added in elsewhere – a source that did not know about a historical Jesus.”[40] However, Paul’s allusion to “the name of Jesus of Nazareth” in His defense before Agrippa implies that Nazareth was Jesus’ hometown (Acts 26:9). The Greek is τὸ ὄνομα Ἰησοῦ τοῦ Ναζωραίου (literally, “the name of Jesus the Nazarene”). Carrier might respond to this by claiming that the Nazarenes may have been a cultic sect, and that it is not referring to the town of Nazareth in Galilee.[41] However, it is worthy of attention that the servant girl in Matthew 26:71 likewise uses the exact same expression, speaking of Peter: Οὗτος ἦν μετὰ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ Ναζωραίου (“this man was with Jesus the Nazarene”). But Matthew clearly believed that Jesus was raised in the town of Nazareth in Galilee (Mt 2:23; 21:11). Since the idea that Jesus was born in the town of Nazareth is found in all four gospels, including the independent birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, it is likely that this tradition goes back extremely early.

To summarize this section, there are good reasons to believe the author of Acts to have been a travelling companion of Paul, and Carrier fails to offer comparably good reasons for thinking he was not. If Paul was indeed a travelling companion of Paul, then it is quite surprising on Carrier’s thesis that Luke and Paul believed such starkly different things about Jesus – especially something as fundamental as whether Jesus lived on earth or was a celestial being who never actually walked the earth. Thus, the evidence for Luke being a travelling companion of Paul suggests that the traditional interpretation of Pauline Christology is the correct hermeneutical framework for understanding those texts previously discussed.