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Does Paul’s Silence About Jesus Prove That He Didn’t Exist?

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning

Over 99% of historical scholarship acknowledges that Jesus was a real person. It doesn’t matter if that scholar is liberal or conservative, or Christian, atheist, agnostic or Jewish. The <1% of historians that believe Jesus is a myth are mostly atheists or agnostics. And it’s only the ‘internet infidel’ crowd that takes their arguments seriously.

One of the arguments that Jesus mythicists will often push is that Paul was mostly silent about the historical Jesus. Here’s GA Wells, one of the minority voices, who writes:

“Paul’s letters have no allusion to the parents of Jesus, let alone to the virgin birth. They never refer to a place of birth…. They give no indication of the time or place of his earthly existence. They do not refer to his trial before a Roman official, nor to Jerusalem as the place of execution. They mention neither John the Baptist, nor Judas, nor Peter’s denial of his master…. These letters also fail to mention any miracles Jesus is supposed to have worked, a particularly striking omission, since, according to the gospels he worked so many.” (The Historical Evidence for Jesus, 22)

And why didn’t Paul quote Jesus’ praise of celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7? Or why not quote the Sermon on the Mount when Paul was teaching the Romans to bless their persecutors to give his message more authority? (Romans 12:14) Or why did Paul say, “we don’t know how to pray as we ought” (Romans 8:26-27) when Jesus taught his followers how to pray in Matthew 6:8-13?

One of those famous internet atheists, Dan Barker, sides with the Wells, writing: “The earliest Christian writings, the letters of Paul, are silent about the man Jesus: Paul, who never met Jesus, fails to mention a single deed or saying of Jesus…and sometimes contradicts what Jesus supposedly said. To Paul, Jesus was a heavenly disembodied Christ figure, not a man of flesh and blood.”

At first glance, the mythicists seem like they have a point. But there are a few problems here.

Arguing From Silence Is Usually A Poor Way To Prove Your Point

For starters, arguing from silence is usually a terrible way to argue. For example, Union General Ulysses S Grant says nothing about the Emancipation Proclamation. The famous explorer Marco Polo traveled to China but never mentions the Great Wall. The archives of Portugal do not allude to the travels of Amerigo Vespucci.

An estimated 16,000-60,000 people died in 79 AD due to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. But we only hear about this event in a personal letter of Pliny’s. The relative silence of historians we’d expect to mention these events doesn’t cause scholars to doubt their occurrence.

Regarding arguments from silence, philosopher Tim McGrew writes: “Such arguments from silence are pervasive in New Testament scholarship, but they are tenuous at best….it is a risky business to speculate upon the motives of authors for including or omitting various facts. To create an appearance of inconsistency by this device…is methodologically unsound.” (Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology)

Paul’s Letters Were Occasional

There’s also the fact that most of Paul’s letters were occasional. Paul often wrote to combat error, or to provide specific guidance to churches. So, for example, Paul writes his entire letter to the Galatians to fight the doctrine of the Judaizers. Or there are the specific answers Paul gives about marriage, meat sacrificed to idols, spiritual gifts, and public worship in 1 Corinthians.

And think about it for a minute. If there weren’t some false teachers in Corinth saying there’s no resurrection, the great resurrection teaching in 1 Corinthians 15 would be missing from our Bibles! Jesus’ miracles, parables, virgin birth, arguments with the Pharisees, and so forth weren’t relevant to Paul’s purposes in writing those particular letters.

The Silence Of Paul…About Paul

In his book Did Jesus Exist?, agnostic Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman points out that Paul wasn’t just silent about some historical facts about Jesus, he also didn’t tell us a lot about himself. Like for instance: Who taught Paul? Where did he grow up? What did he do for a living? What did he do during his three years in Arabia or Damascus before meeting with Peter and James in Jerusalem? Or in the following fourteen years? Where did he go? Paul doesn’t tell us in his letters. We only learn about a few of these things from reading Acts.

Wells mentions that we don’t learn about Jesus’ miracles from Paul. But Paul said he had miracles in his ministry, and that was proof he was an apostle. (Romans 15:19, 2 Corinthians 12:12) Does Wells expect us to believe that Paul believed he and the other apostles had miracles, but Jesus didn’t?

The Silence Of Other Early Christians

But we can take it a step further. We have three letters from John, or at least attributed to him. Scholars believe he was writing to combat the proto-gnostics who were saying that sin wasn’t really a thing, and Jesus wasn’t a physical being. (1 John 1:1-3, 8) But the writer of these epistles, who wrote just like the writer of John’s Gospel, (I think they are both written by John, but scholars debate that) doesn’t mention Jesus turning water into wine, healing a man born blind, feeding the 5,000, walking on water or raising Lazarus from the dead. He doesn’t even quote the words of Jesus from that gospel. Why was the writer of 1-3 John silent about these things? Because they didn’t suit his purposes, not because he didn’t think that they happened.

Furthermore, most scholars believe that the author of Luke’s Gospel is the same author of Acts. Acts is Luke’s sequel. But in Acts, Lukes makes little use of the Jesus tradition he’s obviously familiar with. Clearly the lack of references to Jesus’ teachings in Acts doesn’t show that Luke was ignorant about what Jesus taught!

And what about the writings of some of the early church fathers? 1 Clement, Barnabas, and Polycarp’s letters to the Philippians. These letters fail to mention:

Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
His parables.
That he healed the sick and cast out demons.
That he was transfigured on the mountain.
That he got into arguments with the Pharisees.
That he cleansed the temple.
That Judas betrayed him.
That Pilate had him crucified.

Do we conclude that these writers didn’t think Jesus existed? No, we don’t. In the case of Polycarp, he quotes Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but these other traditions were not relevant to why he was writing, so he fails to mention them.

Paul’s “Silence” Doesn’t Prove What The Mythicists Claim

Finally, Paul wasn’t silent about the historical Jesus. As I’ve written elsewhere, Paul knows a lot about Jesus. He knows that Jesus was a descendant of David, that he had a mother, a brother named James and other siblings, a disciple named Peter, 12 disciples, that he shared the last supper with his followers, was betrayed, abused, crucified, and he alludes to several of Jesus’ teachings. (Rom 1:3-4, Gal 1:18-19, 1 Cor 9:5, 1 Cor 15:5, 1 Cor 11:22-24, Rom 15:3, 1 Cor 1:23, 1 Cor 7:10-12, 1 Cor 9:14, 11:22-24, 1 Thess 4:15)

But Paul’s main focus was Christ and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2) It is what the cross and resurrection accomplish for the believer is what Paul is obsessed with. He’s interested in unpacking that teaching to the young churches. But his alleged silence isn’t a good argument to think that Jesus didn’t really exist. Bart Ehrman, no friend of traditional Christianity concludes that the so-called silence of Paul is a really bad way to argue, writing:

“What do these silences show? They do not show that these authors did not know about the historical Jesus because they clearly did. If anything, the silences simply show that these traditions about Jesus were not relevant to their purposes…What we can know is that Paul certainly thought that Jesus existed. He had a clear knowledge of important aspects of Jesus’s life—a completely human life, in which he was born as a Jew to a Jewish woman and became a minister to the Jews before they rejected him, leading to his death. He knew some of Jesus’s teachings. And he knew how Jesus died by crucifixion. For whatever reason, that was the most important aspect of Jesus’s life: his death. And Paul could scarcely have thought that Jesus died if he hadn’t lived”. (Did Jesus Exist? p. 145)

While I’ve disagreed with Dr. Ehrman many, many times, I have to offer a hearty amen here.

Don’t the Resurrection Narratives Contradict?

3. Are Miracles Possible?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning

The apostle Paul said that if Christ hasn’t risen, Christianity is a sham. (1 Corinthians 15:17) Many atheists agree and will happily point to the gospel accounts. Just how seriously should they take the claim of the resurrection? After all, aren’t the accounts riddled with contradictions? How can they possibly be trusted?

Historians don’t normally conclude that just because individual accounts have apparent contradictions that the event in question didn’t occur. But let’s allow that to pass for now. I think the majority of the discrepancies that critics bring up can be easily resolved. Here’s a list of four of the most popular contradictions in the resurrection account that skeptics like to point to.

#1. HOW MANY WOMEN WERE AT THE TOMB OF JESUS?

How many women came to the tomb Easter morning? Was it one, as told in John? Two (Matthew)? Three (Mark)? Or more (Luke)?…

Atheist blogger Bob Seidensticker

LET’S LOOK AT THE TEXTS

“On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark. She saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.” (John 20:1)

“After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to view the tomb.” (Matthew 28:1)

“When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they could go and anoint him.” (Mark 16:1)

“On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared…Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them were telling the apostles these things.” (Luke 24:1,10)

Whoa there! On the face of it, you can see why skeptics would point to these passages to discredit the gospels. It seems like they can’t get their details straight. But are these accounts really so contradictory? Not really.

“NEVER READ ONE BIBLE VERSE”

It’s a bit amusing that Bob thinks that because John said that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb, he’s implying that others were not present. All we need to do is to keep reading to see that isn’t the case at all. In the very next verse, John says: “So she went running to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him!” (John 20:2)

Wait a second. Where did this we come from? In passing, Mary Magdelene’s own words clearly show that there were other women. John reporting this implies that he’s well aware that there were other women at the tomb. No bludgeoning required. As Greg Koukl has famously said, “never read a Bible verse.” You have to keep reading and get the context before making assumptions about the text. Otherwise, it would seem that you’re either looking for a negative verdict or you’re just trying to fleece someone.

THE SKEPTIC’S BAD ASSUMPTIONS

As for the other accounts, why assume that each gospel account is supposed to give us a complete, detailed list of the women? Luke explicitly says that there were others that he didn’t name. In no gospel did it say these were the women who came to the tomb and there was no one else.

There’s no contradiction here unless you bring that assumption to the text. Selecting to name some women is not an automatic denial that there were no others. If I say I went to the store with my wife last night, I’m not automatically excluding the fact that I brought my four kids with me. I just left out a detail. So what?

#2 WAS THE TOMB OPENED OR CLOSED WHEN THE WOMEN ARRIVED?

“Was the stone already rolled away when they arrived at the tomb (Mark, Luke, and John), or explicitly not (Matthew)?”

Bart Ehrman, How Jesus Became God

LET’S LOOK AT THE TEXTS OURSELVES

And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. (Mark 16:3-4)

And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb…(Luke 24:2)

Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. (John 20:1)

So far all Mark, Luke, and John say that the tomb was open when the women found it. Now here’s Matthew’s version:

At the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. (Matthew 28:1-4)

So far it looks like Bart and the critics have a good point.

GETTING A GRIP ON THE GREEK

So what’s going on here? Is Matthew signifying that the women saw the angel coming down and rolling the stone away? If Matthew comes after Mark, then it feels like he’s adding an extra layer of supernatural ad hoc. While it makes the account sound more impressive, we now get this contradiction.

But let’s reconsider what Matthew says. We’re introduced to the passage about the angel by the Greek participle γὰρ (gar). Strong’s Greek Concordance defines it as: “For. A primary participle; properly assigning a reason.” In other words, it exists to explain the earthquake and set of circumstances as the women found them.

As philosopher Tim McGrew points out, “Matthew uses an aorist participle, which could be (and in some versions is) translated with the English past perfect: “… for an angel of the Lord had descended …”

One such translation is Weymouth, who phrases Matthew 28:2 as follows: “But to their amazement, there had been a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord had descended from Heaven, and had come and rolled back the stone, and was sitting upon it.”

And here’s Young’s Literal Translation, which is about as a word-for-word Greek translation you can get: “and lo, there came a great earthquake, for a messenger of the Lord, having come down out of heaven, having come, did roll away the stone from the door, and was sitting upon it”

So Matthew isn’t claiming that the women saw the angel descend or that they saw the guards get knocked out. It’s not in the text. It seems like the critics are looking for fault here.

OK, BUT WHERE IS MATTHEW GETTING HIS INFO FROM?

But now a question arises. If the women didn’t tell them this story about the stone’s rolling away and the guards falling out, who did? That’s a fair question.

While can’t say for sure, we can venture a safe guess here. In Matthew 28:11-15 we find out that the author had some info about the guards. What happened to them could have come from the same source — perhaps one of the guards themselves.

Matthew 28:2-4 gives us an explanation for the women at the tomb found when they got there. And that is the stone rolled away and no guards. This just isn’t meant to be a description of what the women saw. The stone moved before they got there, and that seems to be what Matthew is communicating when properly read.

#3. DID THE WOMEN AT THE TOMB OF JESUS SEE A MAN AT THE TOMB, TWO MEN, OR TWO ANGELS?

“Did they see a man, did they see two men, or did they see an angel? It depends on which gospel you read.“

Bart Ehrman (The Craig-Ehrman debate)

AGAIN, LET’S LOOK AT THE TEXTS IN QUESTION:

Mark 16:5-6: “And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, …”

Matthew 28:5: “But the angel said to the women…”

Luke 24:4: “While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel…”

John 20:11-13: “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.”

So is this a major difference like Bart and other skeptics claim? Nah. Not if you’ve read the rest of the Bible. Angels often appear to humans as men. Let’s look at just a few texts to prove this out:

6 TIMES IN THE BIBLE WHERE ANGELS APPEAR AS MEN

When Abraham was sitting by the oaks of Mamre, “he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him” (Genesis 18:1-2). These visitors in the very next chapter are called angels. (Genesis 19:1)
Jacob wrestled with the man until daybreak in Genesis 32:22-32. We read in Hosea 12:4 that he wrestled with the Angel of the Lord.
Joshua encountered the “captain of the host of the LORD” who was called “a man” (Joshua 5:13-15).
Here again, we see the same thing in Judges: “And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field. But Manoah her husband was not with her. So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” (Judges 13:9-10)
Daniel had visionary experiences where he describes his angelic visitor as “one in the likeness of the children of man”. (Daniel 10:16-18)
And finally, Hebrews 13:2 tells us that “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Because of medieval, we picture angels as babies or women with wings on their back floating on white clouds. But if it’s possible to entertain angels unawares as the writer of Hebrews says, then they can look just like a human being.

HOW MANY ANGELS WERE THERE?

This shouldn’t be that hard to figure out. Wherever there are two angels, there is always at least one. That’s just an unfailing principle of math. It’s Matthew and Mark who focus on the one who spoke. They don’t mention the other. But omission itself doesn’t equal denial. There is no account saying that there was one and no other.

I mean, we’ve all experienced this before, haven’t we? I’m thinking of my own life for certain job interviews I had. There were two managers in the room interviewing me for a promotion, but my focus was only on the one who was asking me questions. When talking about the interview later with others, me describing the questions and body language of manager Steve wouldn’t mean that manager Suzy wasn’t also in the room with her head down, taking notes.

#4. THE WOMEN SPREAD THE WORD OF THE EMPTY TOMB (OR DID THEY?)

In the other gospels, women discovered the empty tomb of Jesus and returned to tell the others:

“The women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” (Matthew 28:8).

“When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others” (Luke 24:9).

Mark tells us the women kept it hush-hush:

“Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.” (Mark 16:8)

That’s how the original version of the gospel of Mark ended.

BUT DOESN’T MARK 16 HAVE TWENTY VERSES?

Now some of you might be thinking to yourself: “Whoa. Hold up! Doesn’t Mark 16 have more than 8 verses? What about “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” and that strange stuff about drinking poison and handling snakes that we find in the ending of Mark?

Seemingly strange statements aside, I’m not at all here to argue against the inspiration of Mark 16:9-20. But most scholars believe that the original ending of Mark ends at verse 8. Unless you’re reading from the King James Version, most translations alert us to the fact that verses 9-20 are not in the earliest manuscripts. Here’s a sampling:

ESV : [Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9–20.]

NIV : [The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9–20.]

CSB : [Some of the earliest mss conclude with 16:8.]

NLT : [The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.]

These are all fairly conservative versions of the Bible. There’s no liberal conspiracy happening here. You can still believe verses 9-20 are historically reliable and even inspired. But nearly all textual specialists agree that the long ending of Mark wasn’t part of the original text. This gives us an apparent contradiction about what the women said after discovering the empty tomb.

LETTING THE SKEPTICS SPEAK

“One point, in particular, seems to be irreconcilable. In Mark’s account, the women are instructed to tell the disciples to go meet Jesus in Galilee, but out of fear, they don’t say a word to anyone about it.”

Jesus Interrupted. Page 49

Bart wants to create a contradiction by reading Mark as saying they never said a word to anyone. But is this the right reading of the passages?

IS MARK’S GOSPEL INCOMPLETE?

While the general scholarly consensus is that the long ending of Mark wasn’t originally there, what we’re not being told by the skeptics is that there’s debate regarding whether or not Mark meant to end it there or if the original text was cut off or left incomplete.

The late Bruce Metzger was a biblical scholar and longtime Princeton professor. He thought the original ending was cut off. Why did he believe that? Mark has a pattern of making blanket statements before adding an exception. Just take a look:

“He did not let anyone accompany him except Peter, James, and John, James’s brother.” (Mark 5:37)
“Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.” (Mark 9:8)
“As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” (Mark 9:9)
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone.” (Mark 10:18)
“Now concerning that day or hour no one knows—neither the angels in heaven nor the Son —but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32)

This is a clear pattern in Mark. So how would we expect Mark to continue if Metzger is right and the text is broken off? It would probably look a lot like what we read in Matthew 28:8. Let’s combine the two passages: They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid, but departing quickly from the tomb…, they ran to tell his disciples the news.”

Ehrman did his doctoral dissertation under Metzger, so he has no justification in keeping his audience in the dark.

BUT WHAT IF MARK REALLY INTENDED ON STOPPING AT VERSE 8?

If you read Mark carefully in one sitting, you’ll find a common thread. After Jesus reveals himself in some way, he asks the witnesses to keep it on the down-low.

“Then a man with leprosy came to him and, on his knees, begged him: “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched him. “I am willing,” he told him. “Be made clean.” Immediately leprosy left him, and he was made clean. Then he sternly warned him and sent him away at once, telling him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go and show yourself to the priest, and offer what Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Yet he went out and began to proclaim it widely and to spread the news, with the result that Jesus could no longer enter a town openly.” (Mark 1:40-45)
“They brought to him a deaf man who had difficulty speaking and begged Jesus to lay his hand on him. So he took him away from the crowd in private. After putting his fingers in the man’s ears and spitting, he touched his tongue. Looking up to heaven, he sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”). Immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly. He ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it.” (Mark 7:32-36)
“But you,” he asked them, “who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he strictly warned them to tell no one about him.” (Mark 8:29-30)

Reading this, we see that there’s a pattern silence, or requested silence, followed by proclamation. The silence never sticks. The whole punchline of Mark is that Jesus is the Messiah. Why we’d expect this pattern to stop seems silly. Just think about Mark’s Gospel as a whole for a minute:

In the first half of Mark, everyone questions who Jesus is.
In the middle, Jesus questions the disciples’ belief about Him.
The second half tells how Jesus became the Messiah.

Mark is making a point about Jesus’ identity. Many Jews hoped that the Messiah would overthrow the Romans and rule as king, but as we read his gospel, we see that Jesus came to set up a kingdom different than their expectations. He came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for sin. (Mark 10:45) His kingdom would start small but gradually become great, like a mustard seed. (Mark 4:26-29)

With that in mind, it’s possible that the gospel’s abrupt ending is there to intentionally challenge us to decide if we believe Jesus is the Messiah. Mark could be making the understood assumption that of course, the women eventually said something, that’s why you’re reading about this – but what do you think? Who do you think Jesus is?

THE RESURRECTION ACCOUNTS AREN’T HOPELESSLY CONTRADICTORY

“[T]he sources [regarding Jesus’ resurrection] are hopelessly contradictory, as we can see by doing a detailed comparison of the accounts in the Gospels.”

Bart Ehrman, The Historical Jesus (2000), p. 90

Bart’s claim is a strong one, but we’ve seen from this quick review that this claim just isn’t true. These accounts can all rather easily be reconciled. There are other alleged discrepancies in the accounts, and so this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive rebuttal to every objection that could be made. But in examining a handful of the skeptics’ toughest objections, we’ve seen that the narratives are very far from being hopelessly contradictory. Don’t let the critics ruin your Easter.

Is the Historical Jesus Fact or Fiction?

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Tim Stratton

As a pastor who spends a lot of time on the college campus, I hear the following challenges quite often from young skeptics: “There is no good evidence to think that Jesus ever existed,” or “Christianity has pagan roots!” One might put these common challenges as two questions: (1) Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist? (2) Are the gospel records of this man merely fictional mythology?

In this essay, I want to explore several lines of evidence that will show that the answer to the first question is a clear “Yes!” and to the second “No!”

i. Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist?

Though there are many “street atheists,” or “internet infidels” who espouse their unqualified views and who in the process influence many impressionable young minds, it should be pointed out that there are very few (if any) scholars and historians who would argue that Jesus never existed. There is just too much evidence to the contrary.

Space does not permit a thorough list of primary sources for Jesus’ historical existence outside of the New Testament, but the following will demonstrate that Jesus indeed lived. Further, the evidence cited will show that extra-biblical sources do not contradict the historical accounts in the Gospels. Indeed, they complement that history.[1]

The ancient sources[2] will be arranged in two ways: (1) Sources that specifically use the name “Jesus” or “Christ;” and (2) Sources that specifically reference events associated with Jesus.

Sources that specifically use the name “Jesus” or “Christ.”

a) Letter of Mara Bar-Serapion

This letter—written sometime later than A.D. 73—was sent by a Syrian named Mara Bar-Serapion to his son Serapion to encourage him in the pursuit of wisdom and pointed out that those who persecuted wise men were overtaken by misfortune.

What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished…. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good; He lived on in the teaching which He had given.[3]

This ancient document corroborates Jesus’ death, death by the Jews, and that His teaching obviously had continued on (i.e., He had followers who were spreading His teachings).

b) Flavius Josephus

Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote toward the end of the first century AD. There are three valuable references for the historicity of Jesus. One (Antiquities xviii. 5) describes John the Baptist just as the New Testament Gospels do. The second (Antiquities xx. 9) describes the death of James:

(Ananus [Ananias]) convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned.

The reference to Jesus being the brother of James fits the New Testament data, but that Jesus is further identified as the Christ is remarkable in light of the following quotation from Josephus.[4]

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.” (Antiquities xviii. 33)[5]

The value of these words of Josephus—though some words are controversial—can not be overstated. The Jesus of the New Testament documents is called a wise “man,” did wonderful works, was a great teacher, was the Messiah, was condemned and crucified by Pilate, reportedly arose from dead on the third day (in fulfillment of the Old Testament), and a movement of “Christians” continued at the time of Josephus’ writing.

c) Plinius Secundus, or Pliny the Younger: Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor (A.D. 112)

The following is a letter he wrote to the emperor Trajan seeking counsel as to how to treat Christians:

In the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed…. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image… and moreover cursed Christ—none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do—these I thought should be discharged…. They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn[6], and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition…. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms. (Epistles X. 96)

The governor identifies Jesus as “Christ” and says his followers consider him “a god.” Their fault in his judgment is their “superstition” (Jesus’ resurrection?).

d) Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 55-120)

But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate,[7] procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition,[8] repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.” (Annals XV. 44)

These are the chief references to Jesus outside of the 27 individual accounts comprised in the New Testament. A number of other sources are cited (here) on the FreeThinking Ministries website.

Sources that specifically reference events associated with Jesus.

a) Thallus, the Samaritan-born historian (A.D. 52)

Thallus wrote a history of the Eastern Mediterranean from the time of the Trojan War to his own time. Though his writings have disappeared, we only know of them from fragments cited by other writers. The citation below is from Julius Africanus, who is alluding to Thallus’ reference to the darkness that covered the earth from noon to 3:00 p.m. during Jesus’ crucifixion:

Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun-unreasonably, as it seems to me….[9]

It was “unreasonable,” of course because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon, and it was at the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died.

b) Phlegon of Tralles, Chronicles (2nd century).

Though he is known to have written several works, his history—Chronicles—has disappeared. He, however, is quoted by several ancient writers.

During the time of Tiberius Caesar, an eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth occurred during the full moon.[10]

Phlegon is also noted by Origen:

“But,” continues Celsus… “although we are able to show the striking and miraculous character of the events which befell Him, yet from what other source can we furnish an answer than from the Gospel narratives, which state that “there was an earthquake, and that the rocks were split asunder, and the tombs opened, and the veil of the temple rent in twain from top to bottom, and that darkness prevailed in the day-time, the sun failing to give light?”

Answer: “With regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place, Phlegon too, I think, has written in the thirteenth or fourteenth book of his Chronicles” (Origen, Against Celsus, 2.33)…. He (Celsus) imagines also that both the earthquake and the darkness were an invention; but regarding these, we have in the preceding pages, made our defense, according to our ability, adducing the testimony of Phlegon, who relates that these events took place at the time when our Saviour suffered. (Origen, Against Celsus 2.59)[11]

From these references to Phelgon’s history, we see that the gospel account of the darkness (three hours long), which fell upon the land during Christ’s crucifixion and very possibly the earthquake were well-known. Origen’s account is especially helpful because he is responding to an antagonist who questions the New Testament record.

There are numerous other sources that corroborate events associated with Jesus’ life and death, some of which can be found by clicking here.

No reference in the above citations has been made to the New Testament documents, though we must not dismiss them as merely “religious books.” They are primary documents[12] and should be viewed as reliable history unless they fail to meet the muster of other ancient documents. Further, it is apparent in other places in the New Testament that the history of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, was commonly affirmed. The Apostle Paul in his first letter to the church at Corinth (15:3-5) gives a creed current in his day (prior to his death in AD 64) which states that Jesus was crucified to pay for our sins; that He died, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day; and that He was seen by eyewitnesses.

Click here for more information regarding this creed.

ii. Are the gospel records of this man merely fictional mythology?

Though a strong case can be and has been made for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, this has not stopped many young skeptics from espousing popular bumper sticker slogans like “Christianity has pagan roots.” I personally have been challenged with the accusation that the story of Jesus being the Son of God and rising from the dead is plagiarism from Egyptian mythological pagan “gods” such as Adonis, Mithras, Osiris, Attis, and Horus, to name a few.

But careful analysis shows that such charges fail for several reasons. First of all, there are far more differences between Christianity and these mysterious stories of pagan religions than any similarities offered. For instance, it is purported that the pagan god Osiris was a dying and rising god, and that Christianity is a “copy cat” religion based on Osiris’ resurrection from the dead.[13] At first glance this appears to be troublesome, but when examining these stories with more scrutiny, the differences become glaring.

Osiris, so the account states, was murdered by his brother, and then his body was torn into fourteen pieces and scattered all across Egypt. Then his wife, Isis, found thirteen of the fourteen pieces of his body, revived him (quite different than a resurrection), and then went on to make him “god of the underworld.” This is nothing like the historical story that Jesus voluntarily went to the cross, which defeated and destroyed sin so that through His atonement we as humans could be reconciled with the Creator of the universe, and then three days later, Jesus rose from the dead in whole, and in a powerful, glorified body that we as Christians can also look forward to one day. The story the Bible teaches as historical fact seems quite different when compared to these mythical pagan stories.

Sean McDowell in an article entitled “Is Christianity a Copycat Religion?” says that “Parallels prove nothing.” He gives an interesting parallel: a British ocean liner that could carry 3,000 passengers, had a top cruising speed of twenty-four knots, had an inadequate number of lifeboats hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage, tore a hole in the side of the ship, and sank along with the 2,000 passengers on board. What ship was that? Most of us immediately conclude that this must be the account of the Titanic, but we are mistaken. Sean was describing the Titan, a fictional ship described in Morgan Robertson’s book, Wreck of the Titan, a fictional story written fourteen years before the sinking of the Titanic actually occurred. While the resemblance between the two accounts is eye-opening, the fictional “Titan” is irrelevant to the historical evidence that the Titanic was, in fact, a real ocean liner that sank in the Atlantic after colliding with an iceberg.

Similarly, even if pagan myths did exist that were comparable to the Gospel records and before the time of Christ, it would not undermine the historical evidence for Jesus’ miraculous life, death, and resurrection. “Parallels alone are inconclusive.”[14]

Up to this point, I have intentionally avoided using the Gospel records as historical evidence of the historicity of Jesus because many skeptics disregard anything the Bible says just because it’s in the Bible! However, just because the Bible reports something as a historical event, doesn’t mean we should immediately disregard it. In fact, the Bible is filled with outstanding historical documents. The “search for the historic Jesus” has been going on for well over a century. During this search, there has not been any “new evidence” supporting the idea that the miracle-working Son of God evolved from pagan myths over time. Conversely, modern discoveries have given more reliability to the content of the Gospel accounts in the New Testament. Greg Koukl’s summary states it well:

We know the Apostle Paul died during the Neronian persecution of A.D. 64. Paul was still alive at the close of Acts, so that writing came some time before A.D. 64. Acts was a continuation of Luke’s Gospel, which must have been written earlier still. The book of Mark predates Luke, even by the Jesus Seminar’s reckoning. This pushes Mark’s Gospel into the 50s, just over twenty years after the crucifixion. It is undisputed that Paul wrote Romans in the mid-50s, yet he proclaims Jesus as the resurrected Son of God in the opening lines of that epistle. Galatians, another uncontested Pauline epistle of the mid-50s, records Paul’s interaction with the principle disciples (Peter and James) at least 14 years earlier (Gal 1:18, cf. 2:1). The Jesus Seminar claims that the humble sage of Nazareth was transformed into a wonder-working Son of God in the late first and early second century. The epistles, though, record a high Christology within 10 to 20 years of the crucifixion. That simply is not enough time for myth and legend to take hold, especially when so many were still alive to contradict the alleged errors of the events they personally witnessed. There is no good reason to assume the Gospels were fabricated or seriously distorted in the retelling. Time and again the New Testament writers claim to be eyewitnesses to the facts. And their accounts were written early on while they’re memories were clear and other witnesses could vouch for their accounts. The Gospels are early accounts of Jesus’ life and deeds.[15]

In sum, the contentions that Jesus never existed or that He was a plagiarized version of mythical pagan deities does not pass the muster of historical research, and, therefore, skepticism regarding the reality of the historical person of Jesus is completely unwarranted. Jesus of Nazareth was a real person of history!

Interestingly, Bart Ehrman, one of the harshest and most critical voices regarding Jesus’ resurrection agrees and concludes,

“Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed.”[16]

Notes

[1] A fuller list can be found at our website and the folder “Historical References to Christ from Non-biblical Sources.”

[2] Much of this material and bibliography can be found—often with further discussion—in Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus; Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands A Verdict; also the updated (by his son, Sean McDowell) Evidence That Demands A Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World. See also Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson; He Walked Among Us. Some dating is based on J. N. D. Anderson Christianity: The Witness of History (pages 13-37, especially).

[3] The manuscript in the British Museum, preserving the text of this letter is quoted from F. F. Bruce in The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

[4] Relatively little question is raised about the authenticity of this quotation.

[5] There has been much debate over this quotation, primarily because it is such a strong defense of the New Testament accounts of Jesus. All extant manuscripts of Josephus, however, contain it, which is a strong defense of its authenticity. For all the arguments, see McDowell and Wilson, He Walked among Us, 41-45. Though some have said that this quotation has been “edited” by Christians, the Arabic version still has the explicit reference to the resurrection. The Arabic version: “At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders” (Arabic summary, presumably of Antiquities 18.63. From Agapios’ Kitab al-‘Unwan (“Book of the Title,” 10th c.). See also James H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism, (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/JewishJesus/josephus.html). See also Habermas’ discussion of this and his reference to the Arabic translation of Josephus’ work.

[6] The time was the early morning on the first day of the week, thus celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. By this time, worship had moved from the Sabbath to Sunday.

[7] This is one of four references to Pilate outside the New Testament.

[8] Anderson: [This reference] “is bearing indirect and unconscious testimony to the conviction of the early church that the Christ who had been crucified had risen from the grave.”

[9] Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18.1.

[10] Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18.1.

[11] Phlegon is also noted by a six-century writer named Philopon: And about this darkness…Phlegon recalls it in his Olympiads….

[12] Especially F. F. Bruce, Are the New Testament Documents Reliable? In a Biola Christian Apologetics Program audio lecture (Craig Hazen, “Evidence for the Resurrection”), Hazen states “When these gospel accounts are scrutinized under the accepted principles of textual and historical analysis, they are found to be trustworthy historical documents and primary source accounts concerning the life, death, and resurrection of the man Jesus of Nazareth.”

[13] Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, 163.

[14] Sean McDowell, “Is Christianity a Copycat Religion?” quoted in The Apologetics Study Bible for Students, 1366.

[15] Greg Koukl, http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6760, accessed February 11, 2017.

[16] Bart Ehrman, “Did Jesus Exist?”, Huffington Post (March 29, 2012); http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html, accessed February 11, 2017.

Messianic Convergence in the Gospels: A New Way to Frame the Argument from Old Testament Fulfilment

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

Anyone who has spent considerable time studying the gospels can tell that they are literally saturated with Old Testament fulfilment and allusions. Indeed, the early church used two primary lines of argument to establish the Messianic credentials of Jesus of Nazareth — the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and Messianic prophecy. How useful is fulfilment of the Messianic prophecy in the person of Jesus to the purposes of contemporary, twenty-first-century apologists? In this article, I explore a way to frame the argument in a robust and objective way. First, I will summarise my argument, and then I will dig into the details.

A Summary of the Basic Argument

When it comes to the origins of the gospel narratives, there are three contending hypotheses for explaining their origin. These are:

(1) The gospel authors deliberately fabricated the events that they narrate.

(2) The gospel authors were honestly mistaken in their reporting of the events that they narrate.

(3) The gospel authors faithfully recorded actual events.

Of course, those options could in principle, be correct either individually or in combination with one another. When we discover striking correlations between the gospel narratives and the Old Testament texts (on a level that is unlikely by mere coincidence), then we have evidence against the hypothesis that the gospel authors were honestly mistaken — that is to say, we have positive evidence for design, either on the part of the human authors manipulating the story to impose conformity to the Hebrew Scriptures or on the part of God supernaturally orchestrating the history. The question then becomes, what is the locus of the design?

The first of the above hypotheses — that is, that the gospel authors deliberately fabricated the events that they narrate is significantly undermined when we discover points of historical confirmation of the gospels (a subject that I have written, lectured and debated extensively about elsewhere). I have contended publicly elsewhere that numerous historical points in the gospels can be historically verified and confirmed (e.g., here). This gives rise to an inductive argument for treating the gospel documents as a whole as trustworthy. The numerous points of historical confirmation in the book of Acts, moreover, build us a picture of the pedigree of its author Luke (who also happens to be the author of the third gospel), and thus offers us additional reason to trust what he writes in his gospel. I (and others) have developed that case extensively in various venues, and to argue this is not the primary purpose of the present article.

Having shown the first two of the three options to be improbable, therefore, it is possible to provide evidential support for the third contending hypothesis, namely, that the gospel authors faithfully recorded actual events, and the locus of the design is supernatural divine orchestration of the events to result in convergence between events in Jesus the Messiah’s life and foreshadows written of in the Hebrew Bible. In syllogistic form, this argument can be presented as follows:

Premise 1: The correlation between events recorded in the gospels and Hebrew Scripture is either the product of human design or divine design.

Premise 2: It is not the product of human design.

Conclusion: Therefore, it is the product of divine design.

One can, of course, make the inductive argument I just described for taking the gospels as a whole to be highly reliable. The case, however, is lent even greater force when we can point to specific instances of details in the gospels that are subject to historical confirmation, which also correlates with the Hebrew Bible in some way. We can model this argument probabilistically using Bayesian analysis.

Probabilistic Modelling

The equation given below represents the odds form of Bayes theorem, which is used in developing cumulative cases. Translated, it states that the posterior probability of your hypothesis (H) given the available evidence (E) is equal to the prior probability (given the background information) of the hypothesis being true (expressed as a ratio) multiplied by the ratio of the evidence given the hypothesis against the probability of the evidence given the antithesis.

Dividing the probability of the evidence given the hypothesis by the probability of the evidence given the antithesis gives you what is referred to in probability theory as the Bayes Factor. The Bayes Factor is a measure of the strength of the evidence and indicates how many times more likely it is that you will observe this evidence given that your hypothesis is true than if it were false. For instance, a Bayes Factor of one hundred indicates that your evidence is one hundred times more likely if your hypothesis is true than if it were false.

This form of reasoning is used routinely in the discipline of forensic science. For instance, the presence of a defendant’s fingerprints on the murder weapon may be taken as evidence for the hypothesis of guilt over the hypothesis of non-guilt because the probability of the defendant’s fingerprints being on the murder weapon is much higher on the hypothesis that the defendant is guilty than on the hypothesis that he is not guilty. This is the very same mode of reasoning that I use when evaluating the evidence for the existence of God and for the truth of the Christian gospel. As we examine the data, I will be using to construct this argument; we will assign each a plausible Bayes factor as a way of modeling our cumulative case. We will then be able to more readily see the strength of the argument as a whole. Please note that there is a degree of subjectivity in these assignments, but I have tried as best as I can to err on the side of caution, and I do not think my estimates are unreasonable. In any case, the reader is invited to plug in his or her own numbers and conduct their own analysis. My goal here is to show how an argument of this sort can be mounted.

The Data

I will now consider several instances where we have specific historical confirmations of details in the gospel that, given the Old Testament backdrop, seems to be a bit too striking to be coincidental.

Example #1: Jesus’ Death at Passover

One historical detail that can scarcely be denied is that Jesus died at the time of Passover. This is a detail attested by all four gospels and implied by Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:7. This is not a detail that the gospel authors (or their sources) plausibly misremembered. So many details in the gospels are connected to Jesus’ death being at the time of Passover (e.g., see John 18:28). It is also supported by the next example we will discuss shortly. I will not here get into the discussion of whether John and the synoptic gospels contradict each other on the precise day on which Jesus is crucified (I have already addressed that here). It is clear that the New Testament authors unanimously considered Jesus to be the ultimate fulfilment of the Passover lamb (see John 1:29; John 1:36; 1 Corinthians 5:7; 1 Peter 1:18-19; Revelation 7:14; and Revelation 12:11). The correspondence, therefore, seems too neat to be the result of coincidence. Christ’s execution by the Romans at the time of Passover is a remarkable ‘coincidence’ that would have been difficult for an impostor to engineer.

One caveat to consider is that there are also other days throughout the year, such as the day of atonement, to which we might attach some special significance if Jesus’ death had landed on those days. I will, therefore, assign a conservative Bayes factor of 50 for this correspondence. Remember, this means that the correlation is 50 times more probable on the hypothesis of design than on the hypothesis of coincidence.

Example #2: Selection of the Passover Lamb

There is an additional interesting connection, not wholly independent of the one just discussed but nonetheless certainly worthy of attention. This has to do with Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem five days before the Passover on which He died. Consider John 12:1-2,12-13:

Six days before the Passover, Jesus, therefore, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table…12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

John here has given us a very specific extraneous detail (which none of the other gospels gives us): Jesus arrived at Bethany six days before the Passover, and the following day rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey (which would have been five days before the Passover).

Can we confirm John’s accuracy on this? Yes, we can.

Turn over to Mark 11:1-11, which parallels the arrival at Bethany (although Mark does not give us the time-stamp that John provides):

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it…7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. 8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David! Hosanna in the highest!” 11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Mark does not tell us that Jesus approached Bethany six days before the Passover, nor that it was the following day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. However, it appears implicit that they fetched the colt early in the morning — since the disciples fetch the colt, there is the triumphal entry and Jesus and the disciples entered the temple and “looked around at everything” (which was presumably a whole day’s activities). If then, we assume that Jesus entered Jerusalem five days before Passover, then we can begin counting off the days narrated in Mark’s gospel, to see if the narrative synchronizes with that of John.

Verses 12-14 narrate the cursing of the fig tree, which according to verse 12, happened “the following day” (i.e., four days before the Passover, assuming John’s chronology to be correct). Jesus then cleansed the temple, and according to verse 19, “when evening came, they went out of the city.” In verse 20, we read, “As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.” We are now, therefore at three days before the Passover. In Mark 13, we read of the Olivet discourse on the Mount of Olives. This we can assume took place in the evening, since the Mount of Olives was mid-way between the temple in Jerusalem and Bethany where Jesus and the disciples were staying. This, then, marks the end of three days before the Passover. When we turn over to Mark 14, we read in verse 1, “It was now two days before the Passover.” Mark and John thus calibrate perfectly, thereby corroborating the time-stamp given to us by John.

Having confirmed that Jesus really did enter Jerusalem five days before the Passover, let us now look to the Old Testament to see if we have any point of striking correlation. Passover itself falls on the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan. That means that five days before the Passover falls on the 10th day of Nisan. Now let us turn over to Exodus 12, where God gives instructions to the people of Israel concerning the first Passover. In verse 3, God says to Moses and Aaron,

Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month [i.e., Nisan] every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household.

Thus, the Passover lamb was to be selected and taken into the household of the men of Israel on the tenth day of the month of Nisan. Given the oft-repeated New Testament imagery of Jesus being the Passover lamb (e.g., 1 Corinthians 5:7), it is thus quite striking that Jesus’ triumphal entrance into Jerusalem and reception by the people happens to fall on the 10th of Nisan, five days before Passover.

How probable is this correlation on the hypothesis that the connection is coincidental? It must be borne in mind that this coincidence is not wholly independent of the previous one since Jesus coming into Jerusalem on Nisan 10 would not matter at all if it weren’t for the fact that he then died subsequently at least around that time. If we take his entry into Jerusalem on Nisan 10 to be significant, we must be assuming that he died right around that time, which means that that one entails the other. The question we can ask, however, is how much additional evidence it provides that Jesus also entered Jerusalem on Nisan 10. Another factor for us to consider is that Passover is a particularly likely time for a Jew to enter Jerusalem and also a time when he could count on ministering to a large crowd of people who had made their pilgrimage to Judea for the feast.

One may object here that a possible explanation of this coincidence is that Jesus Himself, seeing Himself as the fulfilment of the Passover lamb, deliberately entered Jerusalem on Nisan 10th. However, to this, I offer two responses. First, if Jesus saw falsely Himself as Messianic it is far more likely that he would have perceived Himself to be a military leader like Simon Bar Giora, who would lead a revolt against the Roman occupiers, not suffer a humiliating death by crucifixion. Second, the appropriate issue to concern ourselves with is the striking coincidence that it was precisely on the year on which Jesus entered Jerusalem five days before Passover that His death by crucifixion coincidentally took place on the day of Passover.

To be conservative, therefore, I will only assign a Bayes factor of 2 to this fact. Thus far, our cumulative Bayes factor from the two examples we have considered is 50 x 2 = 100.

Example #3: Jesus the First Fruits

In 1 Corinthians 15:20, Paul says of Christ that he is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

What is being alluded to here? For the answer, we turn to Leviticus 23:9-14, in which we read of the feast of first fruits.

9 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, 11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it. 12 And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord. 13 And the grain offering with it shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, a food offering to the Lord with a pleasing aroma, and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, a fourth of a hin. 14 And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

The feast of firstfruits is the next Jewish feast following the feasts of Passover and unleavened bread and had to do with the barley harvest, which preceded the slightly later wheat harvest (the former arrived in March / April; the latter around May, according to our calendars). The latter of those was associated with the feast of Weeks (Pentecost). God, therefore, instructed the people of Israel that prior to reaping the barley harvest they were to wave before the Lord a sheaf of the first grain. This would symbolize that the sheaf was representative of the whole crop. It represented their trust that the God who had given them the firstfruits would also bless the rest of the harvest.

How, then, does Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:20, link Jesus to the feast of first fruits? Christ was the first fruits of the resurrection, having been raised prior to the general resurrection at the end of time. Although previous people (e.g., Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter) had been raised from death, those individuals were not raised to glory and immortality. Eventually, they would die again. Jesus, by contrast, was the first person in all of history to be raised to glory and immortality, with a body transformed such that it was no longer subject to decay or death. Thus, he is the ‘sheaf’ that is waved before the Lord, the first fruits of the harvest.

Now, what is particularly striking is the day on which the feast of first fruits was to take place. According to Leviticus 23:11b, it was to happen “the day after the Sabbath” following Passover. That would be Sunday! It can thus hardly be a coincidence that Christ was raised on the Sunday following the Passover. When we consider the day that Jesus was claimed to be raised as first fruit from among the dead (the Sunday following Passover), we have yet another striking coincidence.

It is largely taken for granted among scholars that the disciples had experiences following Jesus’ death, which they interpreted to be the raised Christ — scholars are largely in agreement that the disciples did not deliberately lie about having seen Jesus raised from the dead. We also have strong evidence that the claim was that Jesus rose from the dead on the Sunday following His crucifixion — not only is it reported in all four gospels (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1), but there is also the widespread switch from observing the Sabbath to observance of the Lord’s day (Sunday) in the first century. One might object that the gospels only report the discovery of the empty tomb and the appearances taking place on the Sunday but do not tell us when exactly Jesus was raised. However, Jesus repeatedly states that His resurrection will take place “on the third day,” which would have to be the Sunday since His death was on a Friday. Further evidence that the earliest apostolic proclamation was that Jesus had been raised on the Sunday following His death is the allusion in 1 Corinthians 15:4 to Jesus being “raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” Indeed, Paul’s allusion in verse 20 of the same chapter to Christ being the firstfruits from among the dead may indicate what Paul means by Christ’s resurrection on the third day being “in accordance with the Scriptures.”

It must be stated at this point that the exact interpretation of Leviticus 23:11b was disputed by first-century Jewish interpreters. Most Pharisees took this day to be the day after the annual Sabbath, rather than the weekly Sabbath — that is, the day after the 15th of Nisan, on which fell the feast of unleavened bread (the Jews were not permitted to work on this day according to Leviticus 23:7). They would thus observe the firstfruits offering on the 16th of Nisan, irrespective of the day of the week. Here is what the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus tells us [Antiquities 3:10:5-6]:

But on the second day of unleavened bread, which is the sixteenth day of the month, they first partake of the fruits of the earth, for before that day, they do not touch them.

A minority of Pharisees, and the Sadducees, however, maintained that the offering of first-fruits was to take place the day after the weekly Sabbath which falls during the feast of unleavened bread. According to this view, the firstfruits offering always took place on a Sunday. This view makes more sense to me Biblically because Leviticus 23:15-16 gives the following instruction about when the feast of firstfruits is to be observed:

15 “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. 16 You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord.

For the day after the seventh Sabbath to equal exactly 50 days, one has to begin counting from the day after the weekly Sabbath.

Furthermore, according to the gospels, the day following Jesus’ death was itself a weekly Sabbath. For example, in John 19:31, we are told,

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

Likewise, Mark 15:42-43 tells us,

42 And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

The festival of first fruits, therefore, would have to have been celebrated the day following the Sabbath (given the Jewish regulations about what could or could not be performed on the Sabbath). This entails that the Sunday on which Jesus was raised is indeed the feast of first fruits.

Moreover, as long as the second temple stood (i.e., prior to A.D. 70) and the Sadducees were in charge, their interpretation prevailed, and the feast of firstfruits was recognized the day following the first weekly Sabbath after Passover.

Further evidence that the gospel authors understood Jesus to be fulfilling the first fruits comes from Acts 2, where we read that the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples at the time of Pentecost, which fulfils further symbolism relating to the feast of Pentecost that is outlined in Leviticus 23 (which I will not dwell upon here).

What Bayes factor might we assign to this piece of evidence? Of course, this piece of evidence is not wholly independent of the fact that Jesus’ death takes place at the time of Passover. There are also only seven days in the week. For these reasons, I assign a conservative Bayes factor of 5. So far, our cumulative Bayes factor is 50 x 2 x 5 = 500.

Example #4: The Crucifixion

Psalm 22 contains a remarkable text which, centuries before crucifixion was even invented, contains a description of the Messiah’s sufferings that strikingly resemble a crucifixion scene. Consider this excerpt from verses 12-18:

12 Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; 13, they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; 15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. 16 For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet— 17 I can count all my bones— they stare and gloat over me; 18 they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

Dislocation of bones, heart failure, lack of strength, dehydration, and the piercing of the hands and feet are all apt descriptions of a crucifixion scene, not to mention the dividing of his garments and the casting of lots — crucifixion victims would be stripped naked as part of their humiliation. This execution also appears to be public since people stare and gloat over him. For a much more detailed description of the evidence for the Messianic nature of this text, I refer interested readers to Mike Winger’s video on the subject of Psalm 22, or this discussion between Dr. James White and Dr. Michael Brown on the topic. The Messianic interpretation of Psalm 22 is also not a Christian invention but can be found in early Jewish sources (for documentation, see this article).

For this fact, I think it is fair to assign a conservative Bayes factor of 1000 (for justification of this Bayes factor, see McGrew, L. (2013) Probabilistic Issues Concerning Jesus of Nazareth and Messianic Death Prophecies. Philosophia Christi 15:311-328.

Thus far, our cumulative Bayes factor is 50 x 2 x 5 x 1000 = 500,000

Example #5: The Name Jesus

The name Jesus is itself very significant. The reason for calling him Jesus is given in Matthew 1:21:

…you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Fittingly, Jesus’ name (the same name as Joshua) means “Yahweh is salvation.” Already, this is a striking coincidence.

A second reason why the name Jesus is significant is that a certain Joshua in the Old Testament replaces Moses in leading God’s people into the promised land. Moses represents the embodiment of the law. The law (embodied by Moses) was unable to lead God’s people into the promised land and so was replaced by Joshua.

A third correspondence is to another Joshua in the book of Zechariah and chapter 6. In Zechariah 6:9-13, we read,

9 And the word of the Lord came to me: 10 “Take from the exiles Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, who have arrived from Babylon, and go the same day to the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah. 11 Take from them silver and gold, and make a crown, and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. 12 And say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord. 13 It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear royal honor and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”’

This individual is described as “the man whose name is the Branch,” which is a Messianic title used elsewhere (e.g., Zechariah 3:8; Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; Jeremiah 33:15). He is also given the office of both priest and king, a dual office which the Messiah is also said to fulfil (e.g., Psalm 110:4) whereas others were not permitted to occupy both offices.

In a study of 2625 male Jewish names from first-century Palestine (from documentary sources and ossuaries), 99 are reported to bear the name Jesus/Joshua (it being the sixth most popular name). That is approximately 3.77% of the Jewish male population. I will conservatively assign a Bayes factor to this piece of evidence of 2, taking our cumulative Bayes factor to 50 x 2 x 5 x 1000 x 2 = 1000,000.

Example 6

Yet another striking coincidence is the fact that Christianity became the dominant international world religion that it became. Until 313 A.D., the Christian church was the persecuted minority, and powerful rulers and officials attempted to stamp out the Christian religion, destroy its Scriptures and its people. There was a high price to pay for being a follower of Jesus, and your fate could include being nailed to a cross, burned alive, or fed to wild animals. The probability that Christianity would become a dominant global religion was, therefore, vanishingly small. However, this is exactly what was predicted in various passages throughout the Old Testament, namely, that the Messiah would bring representatives of all nations to a recognition and worship of the God of Israel.

As an example, consider Isaiah 49:6:

He says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Therefore, on the hypothesis that a given individual is the promised Messiah, the probability that they would bring representatives of all nations of the world to worship the God of Israel is approximately equal to one, whereas on the hypothesis that Jesus is not the Messiah, the probability is vanishingly small. In all history, only Jesus has accomplished this fete. I will assign a conservative Bayes factor of 1000.

At this point, our cumulative Bayes factor is 50 x 2 x 5 x 1000 x 2 x 1000 = 1000,000,000

Conclusion

Various other examples could be given, but I will stop the present analysis at this point. The point of this article was simply to show how a cumulative case can be constructed for the truth of Christianity based upon these striking instances of convergence between the life of Jesus and Old Testament texts in a manner that seems to point towards the conclusion of design rather than coincidence. Since the examples given above enjoy strong historical corroboration, we can safely rule out the human design as being responsible for these correspondences. We, therefore, have good evidence for divine design, and therefore the truth of Christianity.

Of course, it is necessary when doing a Bayesian analysis to give an estimate of the prior probability. Prior probability relates to the intrinsic plausibility of a proposition before the evidence is considered. Normally the prior probability will be somewhere between zero and one. A prior probability of one means that the conclusion is certain. For instance, the fact that two added to two is equal to four has a prior probability of one. It is true by definition. A prior probability of zero, conversely, means that the hypothesis entails some sort of logical contradiction (such as the concept of a married bachelor) and thus cannot be overcome by any amount of evidence. Priors can be established on the basis of past information. For example, suppose we want to know the odds that a particular individual won last week’s Mega Millions jackpot in the United States. The prior probability would be set at 1 in 302.6 million since those are the odds that any individual lottery participant, chosen at random, would win the Mega Millions jackpot. That is a low prior probability, but it could be overcome if the supposed winner were to subsequently quit his job and start routinely investing in private jets, sports cars, and expensive vacations. Perhaps he could even show us his bank statement or the documentary evidence of his winnings. Those different pieces of evidence, taken together, would stack up to provide powerful confirmatory evidence sufficient to overcome a very small prior probability to yield a high posterior probability that the individual did indeed win the Mega Millions jackpot. In other situations, setting an objective prior is more tricky, and in those cases, priors may be determined by a more subjective assessment.

If we suppose for argument’s sake that the prior probability of God sovereignly orchestrating the history is as low as 1 in 10,000,000, this leads us to a posterior probability of 0.99 of the hypothesis being true. Of course, this figure will be highly dependent on the Bayes Factors we have assigned to each piece of evidence. This is, of course, only a mathematical tool for modelling how a cumulative case can provide powerful evidence for our hypothesis, and we haven’t even considered all of the relevant data. I invite readers to plug in their own numbers and see what conclusion they arrive at.

The Death of Judas: A Hopeless Bible Contradiction?

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

By Erik Manning

Skeptics accuse Christians of not paying attention while they’re reading their Bible. If they didn’t rush through their daily devotional, they’d catch some obvious contradictions. One of the more famous of these contradictions is the two accounts of the death of Judas. Here’s Biblical scholar and critic Bart Ehrman:

“The two reports give different accounts of how Judas died. However mysterious it may be to say he fell headlong and burst open, at least that is not “hanging” oneself. And they are flat out contradictory on two other points: who purchased the field (the priests, as per Matthew, or Judas, as per Acts?) and why the field was called the field of blood (because it was purchased with blood money, as Matthew says, or because Judas bled all over it, as Acts says?”

Jesus, Interrupted p. 53

Ouch. Both of these accounts can’t be reconciled. Or can they?

Reading the Texts

Let’s read the passages for ourselves. Here’s Matthew’s account:

“Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.

But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury since it is blood money.” So, they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore, that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.” –Matthew 27:3-8

And here’s Luke’s version:

“Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness and falling headlong he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.” — Acts 1:18-19

One Proposed Solution from A Scholar

Noted New Testament Scholar I. Howard Marshall suggests the following solution:

Judas hanged himself (Matthew.), but the rope broke, and his body was ruptured by the fall (possibly after he was already dead and beginning to decompose).
What the priests bought with Judas’ money (Matt.) could be regarded as his purchase by their agency. (Acts)
The field bought by the priests (Matt.) was the one where Judas died. (Acts)

Now you might say that this scenario smacks of harmonization, but is it really all that implausible? Let’s think about it for a sec.

Dealing with Judas’ Death

Judging by the text, Matthew seems to focus on Judas’ suicide. Luke’s focus is on the final state of Judas’ body. According to Jewish laws and customs, the Jews would not have wanted to go near a dead body. (Numbers 19.11) This would be especially true when that dead body belonged to a traitor.

But how would someone who hanged himself have their guts burst out? This gruesome story doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Or does it? The Textbook of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology says:

“Between 3 and 7 days, ever-increasing pressure of the putrefying gases associated with colliquative changes in the soft tissues may lead to softening of the abnormal parietes resulting in bursting open the abdomen and thorax.”

P. 91

So, we actually do have some medical data that fits with what we read in Matthew and Luke. Someone eventually cutting Judas’ corpse down, or the rope giving out, would explain how his body would have burst on the ground. Therefore, Matthew and Luke aren’t contradictory; they’re better viewed as complimentary. Each account ties up a loose end of the other.

There are also cliffs that overlook the valley of Hinnom. Those cliffs could very well be the place where Judas hanged himself, and his dead body fell. Falling against the rocks, this could explain why he fell facedown.

But What About the Field Bought by The Priests?

Jewish law says that it was wrong for the priests to keep Judas’ blood money. (Numbers 35:31) Why then was it OK for them to buy a field with it? Luke’s story gives us a possible answer: it wasn’t. That’s why the priest bought the field in Judas’s name.

The priests were acting as intermediaries. Them purchasing the field in Judas’ name was as if Judas bought it himself. You might say this is special pleading, but we see this elsewhere throughout the Gospels. See for yourself:

Matthew 27:59-60 “And Joseph (of Arimathea) took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.”

Did Joseph, a rich man and a member of the Sanhedrin, bury Jesus himself? No, he had his servants do it.

Mark 15:15“So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.”

Did Pilate, a Roman prefect, grab a whip and get himself bloody scourging Jesus by himself? Again, the answer is obviously no. He sent his soldiers to do it.

John 4:1-2“Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples)”

Here John says that Jesus was baptizing more disciples than John but then stops to clarify that Jesus didn’t himself baptize; it was the disciples. This type of “representation” speech is also found in the alleged contradiction of the healing of the Roman Centurion’s servant, which I wrote about here.

Plus, the priests had the motivation to do this. It avoids the paper trail that ties them to buying a field with blood money. This would have been a ritual impurity for all the public to have seen.

The Death of Judas: Not A Hopeless Bible Contradiction.

You might say this is all conjecture. But it’s impossible to avoid conjecture if you want to suggest what may have happened. But a classical historian wouldn’t see these discrepancies and be troubled by them. We have a strong historical tradition of the death of Jesus’ betrayer. And we have an event associated with a specific field named. These differences don’t undermine their historical value.

Notice also that each Gospel writer’s account is consistent with their profession. As a tax collector, Matthew is interested in legal and financial details that are involved with Judas’ death. He’s the only gospel writer that talks about the thirty pieces of silver. Luke’s a physician. He gives us more of an autopsy report.

These accounts aren’t hopelessly contradictory. In fact, they complement each other quite nicely.

Jesus: The Greater Moses

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

An untrained eye might miss it, but the Old Testament, properly read, points to Jesus. From Genesis forward, we see reference after reference to a coming Messiah who would one day crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15).

Certainly the covenants with both Abraham (Gen. 12, 15, 17) and David (2 Sam. 7) point to a coming Messiah, but it’s another covenant mediator I want to draw our attention to — Moses. Outside of Abraham, Moses is probably the most significant figure in the Old Testament, because it was through Moses that God gave his Law to the nation of Israel.

As special as Moses was, though, God promised Israel that he would send another prophet who was going to be just as, if not more, significant than Moses himself.

The Promise of A Future Prophet Like Moses

As Israel approached the end of its forty years in the wilderness, God made a promise to them about a future prophet to come. We read Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 18:

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him… The LORD said to me: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him” (v. 15-18).

I can only imagine that at this moment, Israel was fearful of what they were going to do after Moses departed. After all, the people relied on Moses to hear from God as they didn’t dare approach Him themselves. But what would a prophet like Moses look like? Numbers 12:6-8 gives us a clue. The text reads:

Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him, I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD.”

Notice the LORD’s words here in response to Miram and Aaron’s complaints about Moses. The LORD says that Moses is not only a prophet; he’s an exulted prophet. Other prophets only get dreams or visions from God. But Moses can see God and speak with him face to face.

Did the Future Prophet Come?

Before we can answer this question, I need to address Mosaic authorship briefly. I realize several folks reject that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but I am not one of them. After all, it seems as if Jesus was persuaded of Mosaic authorship (Jn. 5:46-47; Mk. 10:3-5; 7:10; 12:26; Mt. 8:4; Lk. 16:29).

Nobody, however, disputes that someone else wrote the end of the Pentateuch which describes Moses’ death. While the dating of the end of the Pentateuch isn’t clear cut, most commentators lean toward the post-exilic era (between 500-400 BC). Meaning, whoever wrote the ending did so about 1,000 years after Moses. We know it wasn’t soon after Moses because the author tells us that no one even knows where Moses’ body is buried (Deuteronomy. 34:6).

I raise this authorship and dating issue because the person who penned Deuteronomy 34 wasn’t convinced that the prophet like Moses had come yet. Verses 10-12 state:

Since then (the time of Moses), no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt — to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of Israel.

As far as the author of Deuteronomy 34 goes, the prophet promised in Deuteronomy 18 had yet to come. Even great prophets like Elijah, Elisha, or Isaiah didn’t make the cut. No, Israel still waited patiently for the prophet who would communicate with God face to face, speak the very words of God, and perform public miracles. Certain prophets had met some of the criteria, but none had met all of them.

Jesus: The Prophet Like Moses

It’s no wonder that so many first-century Jews expected the Messiah to be the great Prophet. After Jesus fed the 5,000, we read in John 6:14, “After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” In other words, these people recognized that the author of Deuteronomy 34 was correct. A prophet like Moses had yet to come at that point. But he’s here now!

Peter makes the connection abundantly clear in Acts 3. While preaching to a crowd in Jerusalem, Peter proclaimed:

Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord…and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. For Moses said, The Lord, your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you.

Of course, this Jewish audience would have been familiar with Deuteronomy 18. Peter emphatically tells the crowd that the great Prophet like Moses has finally come. It’s Jesus of Nazareth.

After all, Jesus meets all the criteria. As the Son of God, he’s the only one who had communicated with God face-to-face. As John 1:18 tells us, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship to the Father.” Furthermore, he not only communicated the very words of God; he was the Word of God incarnate (Jn. 1). And, of course, his public miracles are well documented.

Similarities Between Jesus And Moses

The prophecy of Deuteronomy 18 states that the coming prophet would be like Moses. But in what sense? Consider some of the similarities now:

Both were born under death decree (Ex. 1-2; Mt. 2:16-18).

Both escape into the heart of Egypt (Ex. 2; Mt. 2:13-15).

Both are described in detail in four books, beginning with their births and ending with their deaths (Exodus—Deuteronomy; Matthew—John).

Both were covenant mediators (Moses of the Old, Jesus of the New).

Both gave or received instruction on a mountain (Ex. 20; Mt. 5-7)

Both are transfigured on a mountain (Ex. 34:29-35; Mk. 9:2-13)

Both are isolated for 40 days without food or water (Ex. 34:28; Mt. 4:2)

Both are rebelled against by Israelites (Num. 16; Lk. 22-23).

Truly, Jesus was the prophet like Moses.

Differences Between Jesus And Moses

Despite their similarities, it’s their differences that matter the most. Consider these two:

First, like any prophet, Moses repeatedly said, “thus saith the LORD.” The LORD had communicated to him in some form or fashion, and he then communicated those same words to the people.

Jesus, on the other hand, never used the phrase “thus saith the LORD.” Instead, he said something radical — “truly, truly, I say unto you.” In other words, Jesus didn’t need to receive a word from the LORD because he was the LORD himself! Jesus spoke with authority, unlike any other prophet — including Moses.

Second, God accepted Jesus’ atoning sacrifice but not Moses’. In Exodus 32, after Israel sinned by worshipping the golden calf, God was going to consume them. Moses, however, sought to spare the people by offering up himself as an atoning sacrifice. We read in verses 30-33:

The next day Moses said to the people, You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. So Moses returned to the LORD and said, Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin — but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written. But the LORD said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.

Even at this early stage, Moses recognized atonement must be made for Israel’s sins, and thus he offers up himself! But God rejected his offer. After all, Moses himself was just a man — a sinful one at that. He couldn’t possibly atone for the people’s sins.

But Jesus could. Being divine and sinless, Jesus could bear the sins of the world. And unlike Moses, God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice and demonstrated his acceptance by raising him from the dead.

So, while Jesus was a prophet like Moses, he was certainly greater.

Jesus Is Greater Than Moses

The author of Hebrews saw this comparison and didn’t hesitate to elevate Jesus above Moses. His words seem an appropriate ending to this article:

Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house (Heb. 3:1-5).

Was Apollonius of Tyana a Jesus Parallel?

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

By Ryan Leasure

Bart Ehrman is the most popular skeptic in America today. Writing at super-sonic rates, his books seem to find their way on the New York Times Bestseller list about every other year. Because of his rapid output and wide popularity, his views are spreading like gangrene across the American landscape (and beyond).

Additionally, Ehrman is a professor of religion at UNC-Chapel Hill where he works to cripple the faith of every young Christian who enters his classroom. He shares one of his faith-crippling tactics in his book How Jesus Became God.

Ehrman tells the story of beginning his class by sharing this description of a famous man from the ancient world.

“Before he was born, his mother had a visitor from heaven who told her that her son would not be a mere mortal but in fact would be divine. His birth was accompanied by unusual divine signs in heaven. As an adult, he left his home to engage on an itinerant preaching ministry. He gathered a number of followers around him who became convinced that he was no ordinary human, but that he was the Son of God.

And he did miracles to confirm them in their beliefs: he could heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. At the end of his life, he aroused opposition among the ruling authorities of Rome and was put on trial. But they could not kill his soul. He ascended to heaven and continues to live there till this day.

To prove that he lived on after leaving his earthly orb, he appeared again to at least one of his doubting followers, who became convinced that in fact, he remains with us even now. Later, some of his followers wrote books about him, and we can still read about him today.1

Ehrman, of course, wants everyone in his class to thinks he’s talking about Jesus. But alas, he reveals the shocking news that he wasn’t talking about Jesus at all. Instead, he’s referring to Apollonius of Tyana.

This revelation is intended to rattle whatever remaining faith his Christian students might have. For if he can demonstrate that Jesus’ story isn’t any different from Apollonius of Tyana, well then Jesus must not be the unique Son of God after all.

Apollonius of Tyana — The Skeptics’ Best Parallel

As demonstrated in the story above, skeptics think that if they can show parallels of Jesus from the ancient world, they can prove that Jesus was just one more in a long line of myth stories.

And Ehrman isn’t the only skeptic using this tactic. In fact, if you listen to debates on the historical Jesus, Apollonius of Tyana is mentioned far more than any other ancient “parallel.” In other words, Apollonius is the best parallel the skeptic has to offer.

So, should Christians be worried? Does Christianity crumble in light of Apollonius of Tyana? Was Apollonius even remotely similar to Jesus? No, no, and no. Allow me to elaborate.

The Problem of Dating

Apollonius supposedly lived between AD 15-96. That is, his life comes shortly after the life of Jesus. Yet the only source we have for his life comes from Philostratus in the third century (AD 225). In other words, there is virtual silence about this man for about 150 years prior to Philostratus’ work.

If Apolonnius had been a Jesus-like figure, how come nothing is said about him for such a long period of time?

Sources for Jesus, on the other hand, all date within the first century when eye-witnesses to his ministry would have still been around. The Gospels come about 30-50 years after his life, and Paul writes his letters even earlier (20-30 years after Jesus). Moreover, Paul quotes or references traditional material that predates his work by decades. All that to say, Jesus’ fame understandably spread shortly after his death and resurrection.

Yet we have crickets with respect to Apollonius. This is hard to believe if he truly was the Son of God who performed miracles and rose again from the dead.

The Problem of Motive

What did Jesus’ followers have to gain for spreading the message of Christianity? Ostracism at best, and death at worst. In other words, they had no motive (money, sex, or power) to make up these stories in a hostile environment. In the end, most of them faced severe persecution for their faith.

What about Philostratus? Well, it just so happens that he was paid by the empress Julia Domna to write a laudatory account of Apollonius’ life in order to improve Apollonius’ reputation amongst the Romans and diminish Jesus’ importance.

Living during a time when Christianity was spreading rapidly across the Roman Empire, the pagan empress needed to do something to restore cultic worship amongst the citizens. Funding this project seems to be her attempt to minimize Jesus’ fame.

Philostratus Was Skeptical of Apollonius’ Miracles

Philostratus, though, couched miracle claims with phrases such as “it is reported that” or “some believe.” Case in point. Reporting on Apollonius of Tyana’s most famous miracle (raising a dead girl to life), Philostratus reports that the girl probably wasn’t dead at all, and even states that only some believed she was. He indicates that this girl had some kind of mist coming out of her mouth prior to Apollonius “healing” her.

The Gospels are nothing like this. They make no qualms about Jesus’ miraculous activity. Furthermore, non-Christian sources also indicate that Jesus was a miracle-worker.

The Problem of Historical Errors

The Gospels provide all kinds of evidence for their historical reliability. Non-Christian corroborating sources, eye-witness testimony, an understanding of local customs, and embarrassing material all suggest that these sources are trustworthy.

Since not many people will take the time to read through Philostratus’ five hundred page work on Apollonius, they will miss out on the fact that Philostratus made all sorts of historical errors — mostly anachronisms.

The blunders are so bad that historian H. C. Kee reports, “what Philostratus reports tells us a great deal about the author and his time — that is, at the turn of the third century — but provides no unassailable evidence about Apollonius and his epoch.”2

While Philostratus attempts to give us a biography, many scholars acknowledge that his work reads more like a romance novel. As Boyd and Eddy remark, “while few have gone so far as to reject a historical Apollonius altogether, most scholars are rather skeptical about the historicity of major aspects of the image offered by this one source written well over a century after the figure it depicts.”3

The Alleged Resurrection

Jesus’ resurrection is the single-most-important fact about Christianity. If he didn’t rise, Paul says, we’re still in our sins. Fortunately, Jesus did die and rise again as the Gospels report, and there’s ample evidence to back this up this claim.

But what about Apollonius of Tyana? Did he rise again as Ehrman suggests? Simply put, no he did not. The only hint in Philostratus’ work that gets remotely close to a resurrection is when one doubting disciple has a dream about the spirit of Apollonius after his death.

A Parallel? Really?

Scholars have systematically debunked every line from the Erhman quote above. At best, he’s misleading. At worst, he’s downright deceitful.

No heavenly messenger announced Apollonius’ birth and said he would be divine. That messenger actually came from Egypt and never said Apollonius would be divine. He wasn’t so much an itinerant preacher as he was a visitor of foreign sages. Furthermore, he took a vow of silence for several years as he began his journey. His miracles were dubious, and he wasn’t killed by Roman authorities. Nor did he rise from the dead and appear to his followers. And none of his followers wrote books about him either.

Be that as it may, what if Philostratus had reported exact parallels? What would that prove? For starters, Jesus predates Apollonius. So any parallel would be evidence against Apollonius of Tyana and not Jesus.

Additionally, even if these so-called parallels did exist, it wouldn’t do anything to diminish the historical Jesus.

Taking this line of thought, you could prove I’m a myth because of the parallels between my life and Bart Ehrman’s. Both of us went to Bible college and later seminary. We both write about the historical Jesus and teach others about the Bible. Both of us live in the Carolinas. We’re both white males. And on and on.

The point is you can find parallels anywhere. Many have shown parallels between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Does that mean Kennedy was a legend? Absolutely not.

In the end, it’s not the parallels that matter, but the differences. So while the story of Apollonius of Tyana is interesting, it does nothing to disprove the historicity of Jesus Christ.

The Works of Jesus in the Nicene Creed

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Mikel Del Rosario

Jesus: The Essential Works

What are the essential truths Christians believing about the things Jesus did? As defenders of the faith, we need to know which beliefs about Jesus’ deeds are essential and why we should believe them.

I had a conversation with my mentor Darrell Bock about this on an episode of the Table Podcast focusing on the works of Jesus mentioned in the Nicene Creed—a collaborative statement of essential Christian beliefs crafted in 325 AD. This creed was based on the Apostle’s Creed and various Scriptures. Early creeds are a good reminder that the essentials of the Christian faith were not just made up recently but actually go back to the earliest memories of Jesus and the teachings of his official spokespeople.

Let me share a couple of things we mentioned while talking about a line that that mentions Jesus’ historic death and burial:

“For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.”

The Nicene Creed makes historical claims about Jesus but also includes theological interpretations of the facts. In this post, I’ll define what Christians mean when we say Jesus died “for us.” Then, I’ll touch on the historical evidence for Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. At the end of this post, you can check out the complete podcast to hear our full conversation on the works of Jesus described in the Nicene Creed. So what’s it means to say Jesus “was crucified for us?”

The Nicene Creed says Jesus was crucified for us

First, the Nicene Creed highlights a kind of substitution where Jesus bears the penalty for human sin. As Anselm of Canterbury explained, Jesus paid an infinite debt no mere human being could pay.

Second, understanding the Jewish context of the earliest Christian thought brings a couple of pictures to mind: The suffering servant of Isaiah 53 who “bears our reproach” and the way Jews understood an animal suffering in the place of a sinner. In some cases, Jews put their hands on the sacrifice to symbolize a transfer of responsibility in the sacrificial system. When you wonder about the significance of something Jesus said or did, remember that themes from the Hebrew Scriptures are often the background, and it pays to see Jesus in his cultural context.

So that’s a theological interpretation of Jesus’ death. But what about the event itself? The Nicene Creed mentions Jesus’ suffering on the cross. What’s the historical evidence for Jesus’ death on the cross?

The Nicene Creed says Jesus died on the cross

Jesus’ death by crucifixion is well-attested: It’s mentioned not only in the Gospels but in a snippet of something the Jewish historian Josephus wrote in his Antiquities, which verifies Jesus’ death under Pontius Pilate. The Roman historian Tacitus alludes to Jesus’ crucifixion as well in The Annals. As even a rather skeptical scholar like John Dominic Crossan recognizes, “That [Jesus] was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.” [1]

“That [Jesus] was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”

But what happened to Jesus’ body? The Nicene Creed says Jesus was buried, just like we read about in Mark 15 and Luke 23. But what about this?

The Nicene Creed says Jesus was buried in a tomb

Some skeptics ask, “Weren’t crucifixion victims thrown into shallow graves? How do we know Jesus was put in a tomb?” First, we have reports of Jesus’ burial from the time when people who knew about it were still alive. Second, ancient Jewish sources never say Jesus’ body was thrown to the dogs in a shallow grave. There are good reasons to believe Jesus was really buried in a location that was known and that he was buried in a way that by sensitive to Jewish culture.

For example, convicted felons weren’t buried in family tombs. That’s why Jesus wasn’t buried in a family tomb. He was buried in the tomb of a fellow Jew: Joseph of Arimathea. So Jesus’ burial honored what Jewish tradition says about the way a Jewish crucifixion victim should be buried.

So Christian belief operates on two levels: The historical and the theological. As Christians, we believe historical things about Jesus—events you can actually look into like other events in ancient history. But Christians also believe theological things about Jesus—the stuff that makes historical things really matter in our lives.

Like many Christians, I affirm my belief in both the historical and theological truths of the Nicene Creed as I recite it along with my brothers and sisters in the church.

The Works of Jesus in the Nicene Creed

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,

was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary

and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day, he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

Watch the Table Podcast

We cover a lot more about the works of Jesus in the Nicene Creed during our conversation. What are the essential Christian beliefs? Why should we believe this stuff? Check out the complete podcast:

The Gospel Authors Knew Palestinian Geography

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

By Ryan Leasure

We’re told by skeptics that eye-witnesses didn’t write the Gospels. Not only that, they say the authors wrote from distant lands like Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, or Greece. They merely heard the stories of Jesus from others who heard the stories of Jesus from others who heard the stories of Jesus — much like the game telephone.

And as so often happens in the game of telephone, the stories got mixed up along the way. So by the time the writers penned the Gospels, they had a distorted view of Jesus, and thus we can’t know what the real Jesus said or did. Or so the argument goes.

But is that really what happened? A little thought experiment might help us answer this question. Pretend you were given the task of writing a biography on a traveling woman from Bolivia named Carla. Yet you weren’t allowed to visit Bolivia. Furthermore, you couldn’t use the internet, encyclopedias, or maps for research. Your resources would be a couple of Americans who had never met Carla themselves but had heard stories about her travels.

As you undertake this project, how accurately do you think you could convey the geography and landscape of her travels? Would you really be able to give precise locations and distances? Would you know which towns had higher or lower elevations? How accurately could you describe the bodies of water she encountered? Chances are, you’d make a lot of mistakes with these details.

Well, as we think about these so-called authors from distant lands, they wouldn’t have had access to sources that could give them specific details of the Israeli landscape. So as they wrote their stories about Jesus, we would expect them to make lots of geographic blunders, much like your story on Carla. But this isn’t what we find.

Geography of Towns and Regions

The Gospel writers display an incredible familiarity with Palestinian geography. And they don’t just get most of the geography right; they get it all right. This would be truly remarkable if they lived in faraway regions and had only heard of Jesus through secondary sources. But it would be expected for eye-witnesses who followed Jesus from town to town.

Consider this list of towns the Gospel writers mention:1

In total, the Gospel authors list twenty-six different towns. Some are prominent like Jerusalem, while others are obscure like Cana.

Not only do the Gospels include towns, they reference general regions as well. Consider this list:2

In total, the Gospels list thirteen different regions. Compare these lists with some of the apocryphal Gospels, which give us almost no geographical details.

The Gospel of Thomas, for example, mentions Judaea once and no other locations. The Gospel of Judas doesn’t even list a single location, and The Gospel of Philip names just Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Jordan.

Of course, the lack of geographical detail is to be expected in these apocryphal works. After all, non-eye-witnesses wrote them from distant regions some 150 years after Jesus. Naturally, people would have heard of Jerusalem (the capital of Israel), Nazareth (Jesus’ hometown), and Jordan (the river where Jesus was baptized). One wouldn’t need to be an eye-witness to have knowledge of these regions. But Cana, Bethany, and Salim? One would have to have special knowledge to know about these places.

Geography of Bodies of Water

Since the writers had an in-depth knowledge of the towns and regions, it should come as no surprise to learn they also knew about the bodies of water. Consider this list:3

It’s interesting to note the numerous references to “the Sea” of Galilee. For a body of water that’s a mere thirteen miles long, it’s odd that an Egyptian or Roman author would call it “the sea.” For them, the Mediterranean qualifies as a sea, not this tiny body of water that’s less than 1/300th the size of Lake Michigan.

Yet we would expect Galilean fishermen — who spent their entire careers on the body of water — to call it “the sea.” What’s even more interesting is that while the three Jewish authors of the Gospels refer to it as “the sea,” the one non-Jewish author (Luke) does not. Instead, he refers to it as “the lake” (Lk. 5:1, 2; 8:22, 23, 33). This makes sense because from a broader gentile perspective, “lake” was a more accurate description.

The authors also know that Bethsaida and Capernaum are close by the Sea of Galilee and that you can go directly from the Sea of Galilee into the hill country. Furthermore, John knew of a small stream called the Kidron and of two pools in Jerusalem. One pool he describes as having five colonnades, which has been verified by archeological evidence. Again, all of these details would be quite remarkable coming from non-eye-witnesses in distant regions.

Geography of Roads

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells the story of a man “going down” from Jerusalem (750 meters above sea level) to Jericho (250 meters below sea level). This was a descent of approximately one kilometer. The writer knew enough to know both Jerusalem and Jericho’s elevations. In fact, all four Gospels describe people “going up” to Jerusalem and “going down” as they left Jerusalem.

In John 2 and 4, leaving Cana (200 meters above sea level) for Capernaum (200 meters below sea level) is described as “going down.” Similarly, Luke describes the travel from Nazareth (350 meters above sea level) to Capernaum (200 meters below sea level) as “going down.”

More impressively, the authors knew the location of a tiny village called Chorazin. In Luke 10:13-15, Jesus chides Chorazin along with Bethsaida and Capernaum for their lack of belief. According to New Testament scholar Peter Williams,

The little-known village of Chorazin is, in fact, on the road to Bethsaida and just a couple of miles north of Capernaum. As far as we know, there was not a single literary source that could have provided this information to a Gospel author.4

The authors also knew that multiple routes existed between Judaea and Galilee — one to avoid Samaria and one right through it. Furthermore, they knew it was short travel from the small villages of Bethany and Bethphage to Jerusalem.

Who Could Know All These Geographical Details?

How could one get all of these obscure details correct? If it’s as the skeptics say, and non-eye-witnesses wrote these accounts from distant places, they got extremely lucky. A more reasonable conclusion, however, is that the writers received detailed information from eye-witnesses or were eye-witnesses themselves. As Peter Williams concludes,

No known sources hold together the particular set of information they (Gospel writers) have, and besides, we would have to suppose that they undertook a level of literary research quite unparalleled in ancient history. If these pieces of information result from hearing, then the reports they heard must have been fairly precise — concerned with stories not merely for their message but also for specific details. Thus it seems that the authors received the information either from their experience or from detailed hearing.5

*For more on this topic, check out Peter Williams’ book Can We Trust the Gospels?

Forgery in the Bible: Were 1 and 2 Timothy really forged? Part II

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

By Erik Manning

In his letter to the Romans, we learn that Paul was accused of lying in order to bring more glory to God. Some slanderously claimed that Paul would say, “let us do evil that good may result.” Paul, not known to mince words, responded tersely: “their condemnation is just!” (Romans 3:4-8)

For Paul, lying in the name of God was definitely not OK, even if it was for a good cause. But that is precisely what the Pastoral epistles do, according to critical scholars like Bart Ehrman. Allegedly someone wanted to borrow Paul’s gravitas and so used his name to address some in-house church issues, particularly in 1 and 2 Timothy.

In my first post, I went into detail the positive case for the Pauline authorship of the letters to Timothy. Today we’ll listen to the critics and see just how strong their arguments are.

UnPauline Vocabulary?

One of the more popular objections to Pauline authorship is the difference in vocabulary between the undisputed letters of Paul and the Pastorals. Here’s noted biblical scholar Bart Ehrman:

“There are 848 different words used in the pastoral letters. Of that number 306-over, one-third of them! –do not occur in any of the other Pauline letters of the New Testament. That’s an inordinately high number; especially given the fact that about two-thirds of these 306 words are used by Christian authors living in the second century. This suggests the author is using a vocabulary that was becoming more common after the days of Paul, and that he too, therefore, lived after Paul.” (Forged: Writing in The Name of God – Why The Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are. Pg 112)

If you don’t find this too persuasive of an argument, I can’t say that I blame you. We all know that we use a different range of vocabulary based upon our audience. Paul’s letter to Timothy was a personal letter written to one of his spiritual sons and a fellow minister of the gospel, unlike his letter to the Romans, a large church body whom he hadn’t met yet. It’s not hard to see why his vocabulary is different.

Allow me to give an example from everyday life. I’ve been a supervisor before. I’m going to write an email differently writing to an individual under me who I’ve built some rapport with vs. an email that I’d address the whole company with. Moreover, even in my own blogs, I’ve written about sports and apologetics. My vocabulary changes quite a bit, depending on my audience. I don’t tend to write about baseball the way I write about apologetics. And I certainly don’t text my wife the way I blog for an audience! (I can’t see myself using the word “moreover” in a text to my wife.)

Even Ehrman himself suggests that this isn’t all that strong of an objection to Pauline authorship. Quoting Ehrman: “Probably not too much stock should be placed in mere numbers. Everyone, after all, uses different words on different occasions, and most of us have a much richer stock of vocabulary than shows up in any given set of letters we write.”

Does Faith Mean Something Different in The Pastorals Than It Does in Paul’s Other Writings?

So Ehrman moves his focus from the word-statistics to how the way the words are used in the Pastorals. Here’s Bart again:

“In books such as Romans and Galatians faith refers to the trust a person has in Christ to bring about salvation through his death. In other words, the term describes a relationship with another; faith is a trust “in” Christ. The author of the Pastorals also uses the term “faith.” But here it is not about a relationship with Christ; faith now means the body of teaching that makes up the Christian religion. That is “the faith” (see Titus 1:13) Same word, different meaning.” (Forged, p 113)

But hang on a second! That just isn’t true. Paul mostly does use the word ‘faith’ in the manner that Bart says, but he also does use it to refer to a body of doctrine at times in his undisputed letters. Here are some examples:

1 Corinthians 16:13 (ESV) “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”

2 Cor 13:5 “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith…”

Gal 1:23 “They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.”

Phil 1:27 “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.”

I’d argue that Ehrman’s just wrong here to suggest that Paul doesn’t use different shades of meaning when he’s using the word ‘faith.’ He doesn’t use it in a wooden manner that has only one definition.

Do The Pastorals Disagree with Paul’s Teaching On Marriage in 1 Corinthians 7?

Another objection that Bart raises is Paul’s idea of marriage elsewhere doesn’t match in the Pastoral letters. Here again, is Dr. Ehrman:

“In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul is insistent that people who are single should try and remain single, just as he is. His reason is that the end of all things is near, and people should devote themselves to spreading the word, not establishing their social lives. But how does that square with the view in the Pastorals? Here the author insists that the leaders of the church be married. In Paul’s letter, it’s better to not be married; in the Pastorals, it is required that people (at least church leaders) be married.” (Forged p 114)

But this ignores the context of 1 Corinthians 7. Paul says that he wishes that all were as he was (celibate), but he says that not everyone has the same gift, and his wish was not the same as a command. He starts off the chapter by saying, “because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” (v2)

It’s not hard to imagine Paul, thinking prudentially and wanting to avoid sexual scandal, saying that pastors should be the husband of one wife. While Paul thought that celibacy might be the best for some, it wasn’t practical for all. With pastors leading the flock, the less temptation they have to deal with, the better.

Is The Idea of Bishops and Deacons Foreign to Paul?

Bart’s final objection has to do with the church hierarchy. He says that this “probably the biggest problem with accepting the Pastorals as coming from Paul.”

“The one thing Paul does not do is write to the leaders at the church of Corinth and tell them to get their parishioners in order. Why is that? Because there were no leaders at the church of Corinth. There were no bishops and deacons. There were no pastors. There was a group of individuals, each of whom had a gift of the Spirit, in this brief time before the end came. Contrast that with what you have in the Pastorals. Here you do not have individuals endowed by the Spirit working together to form the community. Here you have the pastors Timothy and Titus. You have the church leaders: bishops and deacons. You have hierarchy, structure, organization. That is to say; you have a different historical situation than you had in the days of Paul.” (Forged p 116)

This strikes me as patently false. In Paul’s undisputed letters, there are offices of overseers and deacons.

Paul opens his letter to the Philippians with “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons.” (Phil 1:1) Here the word overseer and bishop are interchangeable. While not as explicit, Paul also does mention that the Thessalonians had church leaders: “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you” (1 Thess 5:12). He also states in Romans that some are gifted to lead (Rom 12:7) and mentions specific church leaders in other places. (Romans 16:1, 1 Cor 16:15-17) If this is the strongest objection against the genuineness of the Pastoral epistles, then color me unimpressed.

The critics’ case for forgery in the name of Paul just doesn’t seem to be all that remarkable. When we weigh the positive case vs. the negative, it seems to be far more probable that the early church got it right. If the critical scholars think that Pastorals are obviously not Pauline based on such flimsy arguments, then why should we not trust them when they tell us that Ephesians or Colossians isn’t Pauline as well? This just goes to show that we shouldn’t uncritically trust the consensus of scholars without carefully examining their arguments.

Tag Archive for: New Testament

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#1. HOW MANY WOMEN WERE AT THE TOMB OF JESUS?

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#2 WAS THE TOMB OPENED OR CLOSED WHEN THE WOMEN ARRIVED?

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#3. DID THE WOMEN AT THE TOMB OF JESUS SEE A MAN AT THE TOMB, TWO MEN, OR TWO ANGELS?

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6 TIMES IN THE BIBLE WHERE ANGELS APPEAR AS MEN

HOW MANY ANGELS WERE THERE?

#4. THE WOMEN SPREAD THE WORD OF THE EMPTY TOMB (OR DID THEY?)

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Jesus: The Essential Works

What are the essential truths Christians believing about the things Jesus did? As defenders of the faith, we need to know which beliefs about Jesus’ deeds are essential and why we should believe them.

The Nicene Creed says Jesus was crucified for us

The Nicene Creed says Jesus died on the cross

The Nicene Creed says Jesus was buried in a tomb

The Works of Jesus in the Nicene Creed

Watch the Table Podcast

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Geography of Towns and Regions

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UnPauline Vocabulary?

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Do The Pastorals Disagree with Paul’s Teaching On Marriage in 1 Corinthians 7?

Is The Idea of Bishops and Deacons Foreign to Paul?

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