Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Historical Jesus

  • Lazarus: The Beloved Disciple

    This is finally a continuation of my series blogging through Ben Witherington’s book What Have They Done with Jesus? (Previous post here.) Part of the problem is that I have been very busy, and this book tends to fall through the crack. It’s not the sort of thing I read for my own devotions, yet it’s not my light bed time reading.

    But I’m also rather disappointed in it, because I don’t feel that it really is contributing that much to understanding of historical Jesus studies. It’s written at a popular level, so I don’t expect it to advance scholarship that much, but I frankly find the approach a bit bizarre.

    In chapters seven and eight, Witherington continues, this time dealing with the beloved disciple and thus possibly the author of John. He maintains that this is Lazarus. I’m not going to go into the details of his argument. You’ll have to buy his book for that. The historical data that he surveys is coming to this point is rather interesting. He surveys authorship issues in the book of Revelation, concluding that John of Patmos is neither John the apostle, nor to be equated with the author of the gospel or epistles. He believes that the same person wrote the epistles and the gospel, and of course that person was not John the apostle. The authorship issue is dealt with effectively.

    If he stopped at that point I would find it interesting. What’s disappointing is that he continues the process of trying to establish who Jesus is based on his restoration of these eyewitnesses. I find many conclusions in historical Jesus research are based on very limited evidence. In this case we have Lazarus based on very skimpy evidence, and then we see him used as a witness.

    To quote:

    Finally, let’s summarize what the material bequeathed to us by the Beloved Disciple tells us about Jesus. The first and perhaps most important conclusion we learn from examining this material closely is that there is no major gap between the historical Jesus and the Christ of later Christian faith . . . (p. 165)

    Say what? That may be true, though it would be another debate. But based on the information contained in this chapter? Hardly.

  • The Historical Virgin Mary – II

    In chapter 6 of his book What Have They Done with Jesus? Dr. Ben Witherington continues his discussion of the historical Mary, mother of Jesus. In general this is a harmonizing account based on all sources combined, though primarily it works from John and Mark.

    I have already discussed the issues I have with this approach to establishing the historicity of the specific material, so I will continue simply looking at the general outline Witherington is producing of Mary.

    He begins with he wedding at Cana, which he concludes is not the wedding of Jesus himself, which is probably a good conclusion, assuming the story is accurate as told in John. He also cites a number of incidents showing that Mary did not become a disciple until the crucifixion. He also finds no basis for the idea of the the perpetual virginity of Mary. He believes that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were indeed blood half-brothers and sisters.

    There are two very interesting sidelines. First, Dr. Witherington says of the beloved disciple and Mary beneath the cross that “[w]e may perhaps also see a symbolic foreshadowing here of the equaity of man and woman beneath the cross” (p. 127). If it was anything but the gospel of John I would think he was reaching, but this is precisely the sort of symbolism that one finds throughout the Johannine narratives.

    Second, Witherington includes Revelation 12:1-6, the woman clothed with the sun, under references to Mary in the New Testament, but he sees the possibility in the symbolism of a reference to Mary’s activities here on earth, and not to her position in heaven. It’s quite worthwhile reading this section in particular. (I have previously written about Dr. Witherington’s commentary on Revelation, which I believe is the best currently available for the non-scholar.)

    I am generally less optimistic about the historicity of particular narratives, but nonetheless I found these two chapters on Mary fascinating and helpful.

    The next section discusses “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

  • The Historical Virgin Mary – I

    After discussing Simon Peter, Ben Witherington, in his book What Have They Done with Jesus? proceeds to deal with the information we have available on the Mary, the mother of Jesus. This continues with chapter 5. (Previous entry in this series is Search for the Historical Simon Peter – II.)

    I should make it clear that while I have been complaining about some of the historical claims that have not been backed up adequately in my view, Witherington is doing an excellent job of covering the details and connecting them. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that this work is careless or poorly written. I have a certain tendency to focus on points of disagreement.

    Mary and the virgin birth is another point of disagreement. While I believe one can make somewhat of a historical case for the resurrection, or at least that something extraordinary did happen Easter morning that changed the disciples from cowards into courageous men. It’s harder to demonstrate just what that must have been. I don’t believe a miracle can be proven historically, but one can point to something that was not ordinary.

    But the virgin birth is much harder to demonstrate or suggest historically. Witherington makes the claim on page 99 that this is all too improbable not to be true. I think this is an odd claim. First he appeals again to the criterion of embarrassment. Why would the disciples make up a story that involved embarrassing information? This use of the criterion is quite good. Indeed, there must have been something to explain. Then Witherington suggests that an easier way to counter the charge of an illegitimate birth would be to propose Joseph as the father. But I’m guessing that Witherington hasn’t worked in politics. I doubt that suggestion would have done anything to counter the original charge.

    As a point of faith, one can accept a virgin birth. For those who accept Jesus as the Christ, it becomes much easier to accept the idea of a virgin birth rather than an illegitimate birth. But as a matter of historical probability, I think we must admit that, even for the mother of an extraordinary person premarital sex is a more probable explanation than a virgin birth. This seems to me to be a place where one must clearly separate the “faith view” from a simple statement of historical probability.

    Witherington continues with some excellent material correcting common misconceptions about the meaning of the early chapters of Matthew and Luke, and the early life of Jesus. He quickly and effectively outlines the material we have, and notes the things that we don’t know.

    Of course the goal of the chapter is to place Mary as an eyewitness to Jesus, and thus to find what we can learn about Jesus from what we have heard about Mary. Witherington even notes that if Luke 1 & 2 comes from any witness, that witness must most probably be Mary.

  • Search for the Historical Simon Peter II

    This post continues from this one and is part of my series blogging through Ben Witherington’s book What Have They Done with Jesus?

    This chapter continues the theme of the previous chapter. Witherington is creating profiles of the various claimed eyewitnesses in the New Testament and then using them to tell us about Jesus. With certain assumptions, this isn’t a bad plan. It makes for engaging reading. The problem for me is that I don’t accept all of the assumptions he uses, and without those, the procedure can look fairly silly.

    If I’m not convinced on the face of it that the book of Matthew, for example, is a totally reliable witness to the life of Jesus, then how will I be convinced that I know Peter based on that book, and that I can rely on the testimony of this “Peter reconstruction” to establish facts about Jesus.

    I should make one proviso here. Witherington has a number of chapters, most of the book, to go, and may do a better job of establishing the historical basis for accepting the source documents as reliable. I simply don’t see that he has done so yet.

    To illustrate my point, let me refer to pages 82-87 which discusses the incident with Cornelius. Early in this process Witherington makes this statement:

    … We can pretty much rule out the possibility that he made it up: it is hard to imagine Luke, who idolized and was a one-time companion of Paul, making up a story about Peter being the first missionary to the gentiles. … (p. 83)

    Now I see several problems here. Witherington makes the assumption that Luke-Acts was written by the companion of Paul, which implies a certain interpretation of the “we” passages in Acts. That’s a good possibility, and I’m inclined toward it myself, but it is not a consensus position. But then he makes the assumption that Luke would want to make Paul the initial apostle to the gentiles. I think even if the first assumption is good, Luke (whoever he was) shows that he wants to connect Paul more closely with the Jerusalem church than Paul does himself. What better way to legitimize Paul’s mission than to claim that Peter actually opened the door?

    I see a much more favorable view of Jerusalem in Acts than there is in Paul’s epistles, and this would suggest that whether or not Luke idolized Paul (an uncertain statement), he apparently also wanted to present Paul as being on good terms with the Jerusalem church.

    There is a subtheme of these chapters that I do appreciate a great deal, and that is the place of women in the early church. Luke-Acts is a good place to find this theme presented. One shouldn’t be surprised that we occasionally have to read between the lines. For those who pay attention it is clear that Luke is giving a greater place to women and to non-Jews. Witherington tracks this theme very carefully.

    My negative comments should not be taken as meaning I’m not enjoying the book. Witherington writes quite well and it’s very interesting following his logic. As a presentation of one way of providing a profile of Jesus, it’s quite good and thorough. Thus far it has been instructive and interesting.

  • The Search for the Historical Simon Peter

    I’m continuing reading and blogging through Ben Witherington’s book What Have They Done with Jesus?, and have just finished chapter 3. This chapter discusses the person of Jesus. I would like to remind readers again that I’m blogging the experience of reading the book and not reviewing it. Thus my impressions result from where I am in reading at the moment. (The previous post in this series is here.)

    One might get the idea that Dr. Witherington is simply telling the story of Jesus and his companions as it can be extracted from the canonical materials. A large portion of both chapters 2 and 3 simply catalog what we have and add some speculation–educated speculation, but nonetheless still speculation.

    What seems to be missing here is the reasoning behind historical conclusions about these individuals. Toward the end of each chapter, however, we begin to get the point. Witherington is developing a profile of the people who are recorded as eyewitnesses to the life and most importantly (I believe) the resurrection of Jesus.

    Witherington is not a fundamentalist, and deals with the text that would not be possible under most common definitions of inerrancy. On page 59, for example, he says:

    . . . In this narrative [the call of Simon] the first words Jesus is said to have spoken to Simon are “You are Simonson of John; you shall be called Cephas.” It is likely that the Fourth Evangelist, in order to introduce his dramatis personae up front, has moved this tradition to this spot, for Simon received this nickname much later in the ministry, according to the synoptics. . . . (What Have They Done With Jesus?, p. 59)

    I would note two things. From the point of view of more liberal scholarship, this places a greater historical weight on the fourth gospel than many would place on it. From the point of most who accept inerrancy, it would have John either in error or lying, because Simon receives the name “Peter” at a different point in history. (Some could quite comfortably accommodate this issue by appealing to the literary genre and noting that readers probably did not expect chronological accuracy in such a document.

    Thus Witherington is by no means in the hard-line conservative camp that essentially constructs a history of Jesus based on harmonization of every detail of the gospel accounts.

    He carries on with a considerable discussion. Many readers will be interested in his discussion of “upon this rock” from Matthew 16, which Witherington does believe apply to Peter, but in particular to Peter who is confessing. He suggests that while in that text it particular it may have meant Peter himself, it can be extended to all those who make a similar confession.

    So why are we going into all this detail with regard to Peter? It is because of this question that I’ve titled my blog post as I have. Witherington moves from the discussion of who Peter is historically to making the assertion that Peter was in a position to know what Jesus confessed about himself in his lifetime. Thus he says:

    . . . These stories about interconnections within the inner circle must make some sense, and they bear a telling witness to the fact that Jesus was seen and confessed as a messianic figure both before and after his death on a cross. No one knew this better than Peter, and no one would have been more vehement in rebuttal of the suggestion that Jesus had not presented himself in an exalted and messianic ight during his ministry. He became a shepherd of Jesus’s flock for a good reason: he knew the Story, he belieed in the Christ, and he accepted his commission. In the next chapter we will see what the post-Easter Peter has to say to us about these things. (ibid. 76)

    Update: It looks like my conclusion is missing. Thus far I see substantial profiles of claimed eyewitnesses presented without sufficient basis for the claim that the canonical gospels themselves are historically reliable at this level of detail. I’m hoping this will be covered further down the line.

  • What Have They Done with Jesus? – III

    I continue blogging through What Have They Done with Jesus by Ben Witherington with chapter 2. In the first chapter we were introduced to two women, Joanna, whom Witherington connects with Junia (Acts 16:7) and Mary Magdalene. This second chapter focuses on Mary Magdalene and what we can know about her, not to mention things we can know are not so.

    This is a long chapter, beginning on page 27 and ending on page 51. The reason for this is that Witherington has to provide the background of the documents that are used in fashioning various stories of Mary Magdalene. Few characters in literature have received the type of attention that she has. She is seen as everything from a prostitute to the wife of Jesus.

    It’s interesting that I just read Bart Ehrman’s book on Judas, and he also says that pretty much everything said about Mary Magdalene in literature is false. Note that on other points Ehrman and Witherington would disagree substantially.

    So what is Witherington’s approach? First he goes over the background of the gnostic documents and makes his case that they are largely later than the canonical materials. He also contends that they are much too different from the canonical gospels to come generally from the same source. I think he is on fairly solid ground in maintaining that the gnostic materials are late and have little claim to be good sources for the historical Jesus. The one exception here is the Gospel of Thomas, which I think has some value.

    Second, Witherington presents a highly negative view of gnosticism in general and asks why so many modern scholars, and particularly feminists tend to like it. I honestly find many negative things about gnosticism, but there are two potential problems here. First, we can just as easily judge gnosticism unfairly by modern standards. Second, most readers today will have a perspective that is more sympathetic to the orthodox viewpoint as it has been passed down. If we got the orthodox viewpoint in a more raw form, we might be less sympathetic. Asceticism and patriarchy were characteristics of both.

    There are a few pages in which it almost seems that Witherington is trying to give us a negative view of the value of the gnostic literature by means of giving us a negative view of gnosticism itself. That is not, in fact, his argument, but you have to read through the section to get to the point, which is that these folks were not primarily concerned with historical events.

    The one gnostic document that requires more discussion is the gospel of Thomas. I could wish Witherington had spent more time establishing the priority of ‘Q’ over the gospel of Thomas. As it is, the case is reasonable, even though Q is hypothetical. If Q did exist (something of which I’m not 100% convinced), then it would necessarily be quite early, and there is little likelihood that Thomas would be older.

    At the same time it is worth considering that if there were sayings collections, Thomas could also go back to an older source. That would be hypothetical, but certainly not out of the question. I personally would treat Thomas as largely independent source for sayings, though I wouldn’t accept it as sole evidence, and it certainly appears to be a 2nd century compilation.

    It’s a bit odd to discover at the end of this chapter that all this discussion results in the simple conclusion that we know remarkably little about Mary Magdalene. Witherington then makes a number of strong statements about the historicity of the canonical statements about her, and based on those statements about the historicity of the resurrection itself. On this point I think he is on less solid ground. He is right to apply a full measure of skepticism to the gnostic gospels.

    I find it remarkable that so many scholars regard them as highly as they do with reference to the historical Jesus. Yet a historian must use similar skepticism on the canonical gospels. Witherington himself says much the same thing. Yet I don’t see it in practice up to this point. (Please remember that I’m blogging through and not reviewing. I am reporting my state of mind at this point, not my final conclusions.) I will be watching for a similar level of analysis of the canonical sources as I continue to read.

  • Review: The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot

    Bart Ehrman’s books tend to get quite a bit of hype around them, but when one actually reads them, one finds the work of a fine, generally balanced scholar. This is true of The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot, as it was of Misquoting Jesus, which I reviewed early in a series of posts. Ben Witherington is fairly hard on Ehrman, referring to that same book, and stating that he goes well beyond his evidence (What Have They Done with Jesus?, pp. 6-7). If one goes by he cover, that is likely true, but I would say that the actual contents are much better, both in terms of nuanced claims and of evidence. (I’ve begun blogging through Witherington’s book here.)

    The bottom line is that this is a well-written book, easy to follow, and covering the most essential material. I rarely read a book on a discovery like this one without wishing that the author had spent less time on some things and more on others. Ehrman manages to include enough of the story of discovery to give the flavor. He summarizes the document well, and then looks at its implications.

    Many popular discussions–by which I mean non-scholars discussing the Gospel of Judas–get the focus and implications entirely wrong. It is natural for 21st century westerners to immediately turn to issues of the historical Jesus, and of course the historical Judas. But the fact is that the Gospel of Judas gives us very little additional information on that issue. It is later than the canonical gospels, though earlier than most non-canonical gospels, and it has even less emphasis on historical events.

    But it does have a significant impact on our understanding of early Christianity in its various forms and on gnosticism. That is what could be expected, and it is also what was actually found. Ehrman makes these facts pretty clear.

    He starts by providing us a narrative framework for his own exposure to the gospel which serves to help us understand the process of discovery and preservation (or lack of it) that goes into bringing this type of manuscript to publication. This preface and first chapter illustrates some of the difficulties in dealing with ancient artifacts. Fortunately, unlike most items such as ossuaries, pieces of pottery, and so forth, a printed text retains a good deal of its value even without a well-established provenance.

    The second chapter continues by telling us what is already known about Judas Iscariot and how this is known, as well as discussing the various perspectives on Judas. This is followed in chapter three by a discussion of later Christian literature and its perspective. These two chapters are valuable in demonstrating how a story can grow and change shape over centuries of use. Chapter 4 then tells us what was known previously about the Gospel of Judas in order to prepare for the discovery of the actual text, and chapter 5 finishes the story of the discovery.

    Chapters 6-8 get to the heart of the matter and tell what we learn from the text itself, and how that fits into our understanding of early Christian gnosticism. Ehrman provides good context and well done summaries. He also covers a variety of views on gnosticism. The result is about the best one could hope for in the space allotted.

    Finally, in chapters 9-10 we get what many were probably looking for in the first place–a discussion of the historical Judas, and it turns out that the Gospel of Judas has practically nothing to say about this at all. Ehrman follows with an excellent summary of how historical study is done using ancient manuscripts and other material, and then applies those methods to Jesus and Judas Iscariot. He finds frustratingly little that one can say with certainty, but he is very clear about how he comes to those conclusions. Those interested in the historical Jesus could do worse than to read his summary of the methodology involved.

    Despite the limited historical conclusions about Judas, Ehrman regards the Gospel of Judas as very historically important. Its importance is to the history of early Christianity. In the final chapter he kind of rounds up what has been implied earlier. There are two extremes in views of the history of early Christianity. One holds that a single orthodoxy came from Jesus and the apostles. There were numerous heresies that broke off and threatened the true faith, but ultimately truth (orthodoxy) prevailed. Thus while there may have been disputes, these were either minor ones amongst friends, or fights between truth and error.

    The other extreme represents Christianity as spreading from its origin point in Jerusalem and presumably Galilee in many variations as various groups of disciples did their best to understand Jesus and what he meant. Orthodoxy is “orthodox” because it represents the winning viewpoint, not because it has some ultimate claim to being the most genuine. Ehrman plainly represents the second of these views and sees the Gospel of Judas in that light.

    While I am not fully in agreement with Ehrman on all points, I think this is an exceptionally good popular level book and a good introduction to the meaning of the Gospel of Judas. It doesn’t require any substantial background, because Ehrman provides a clear context throughout.

  • What Have They Done with Jesus? – II

    It has been some time since I wrote my first post on this book. I have been distracted by other matters.

    The first chapter really builds very little on the principles I described in my first post. Rather this deals with the historical clues we have in the gospels about two women: Joanna and Miriam of Migdal, more commonly known as Mary Magdalene.

    Working from a few historical clues, Witherington proposes to identify Joanna with Junia of Romans 16:7, who was prominent among the apostles. Having seen how annoyed some complementarians get at the suggestion that this Junia is a real apostle, I have to wonder what their reaction will be to Witherington’s proposal that she is actually the Joanna who traveled with Jesus, witnessed the crucifixion, and then, he says, was likely present at Pentecost. For the arguments in favor of this, you’ll have to get the book and read the chapter. I will just say that I have always been convinced Junia was an apostle in the fullest sense of the word, and Witherington has added to that conviction. The connection with Joanna of the Gospel of Luke is more tenuous, but not implausible.

    As for Miriam of Migdal, Witherington says several things which I had just read in Ehrman’s The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot. Basically both point out that most of the things we believe about her are simply not present in the text. There is nothing to suggest she was a prostitute, nor that she was Jesus’ wife. Other than the statement that seven demons had been cast out of her, none of these details are even suggested. Witherington focuses on the story of John 20 which makes her a witness to the resurrection.

    I would agree here that the story of the women as the initial witnesses to the resurrection has the ring of truth to it, if on no other basis than the criterion of embarrassment. Had the disciples not run away, it is doubtful they would have invented such a story, and had they not first heard the story of the resurrection from women, it is doubtful they would have created that story either.

    So much for chapter 1. I’ll keep blogging chapter by chapter.

  • Witherington: What Have They Done with Jesus?

    I have two books on my “to be read” shelf that I also intend to blog through. Since I just completed Random Designer, by Dr. Richard Colling, and I have Francis Collins, The Language of God which also deals with evolution, I decided to take Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with Jesus? next. I’ll get to Collins’ book next.

    In addition to giving me a change of subject, its topic is also closer to areas in which I have some expertise. The word “some” should be noted here–I’m not a New Testament scholar. I’m largely a popularizer, and my academic training emphasized Hebrew scriptures. But working in a church, rather than an academic environment, I have been forced to spend a great deal of time on the New Testament just because that’s what most church members want to study.

    My procedure for blogging through a book is to read a chapter or block of chapters and then write my reaction on the blog immediately, rather than read the whole book and then write a more comprehensive review. This can result in some need to correct my impressions later, and in the case of Random Designer, that did happen. It is perhaps a slightly post-modern way to read a book, but I don’t think I’m very post-modern, so maybe I do it just for fun.

    (more…)

  • Reacting to Biblical Criticism

    How does Biblical criticism relate to faith? How does one relate this to the work of the Jesus Seminar, for instance? Scot McKnight has an excellent answer in his post A Letter to a Question-full Christian (HT: Pseudo-Polymath). McKnight doesn’t deny the differences in the gospel texts (the main issue at hand), but he also uses some common sense explanations about how such things occur, and how that might relate to historicity.

    I do disagree with one sentence:

    No one dies for a myth, or at least they shouldn’t.

    I believe it is precisely for the myth that people are willing to die. But I am absolutely certain I am using the word “myth” in a different sense. If Jesus was simply a guy who died and was raised, there would be nothing to believe in. Think about his life. There is nothing there that has not at least been claimed of someone else, and except for the virgin birth, you can find similar experiences in scripture–martyr’s deaths, even resurrections. None of that convinced us that Jesus was God.

    We commonly use the term “myth” to as a sort of synonym for “wild fictional tale without historical foundation.” (OK, I exaggerate slightly, but allow me the fun.) I’m referring to the part that “ostensibly relates historical events usu. of such character as to serve to explain some practice, belief, institution, or natural phenomenon, and that is esp. associated with religious rites and beliefs” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary). The point is that we give greater meaning to the story of Jesus than the apparent physical happenings would warrant, even were all of them proven true. In my view nothing in the record would make us decide Jesus was God. We would probably decide he was the most impressive of prophets.

    But the myth that grows around him, that builds in the meaning and relates it to me now. Thus history can be flexible–not absent, but malleable–as Christians understand the mythos that results from Jesus.

    McKnight’s conclusion is great:

    Now, here’s where I have come: I believe in the Gospels and what they say about Jesus not simply because I have learned that they can be trusted on the basis of historical methods and inquiry, but more importantly because God has spoken to me through those records, because I have found Jesus to be utterly saving and wonderful, and because the Spirit who speaks to me is the Spirit who has spoken to others — beginning with the apostles who put down these sayings and events into words in such a way that the Church — the Church that is led by the same Spirit — has constantly told just this story about Jesus. It is the only story of Jesus I know; it is the story of Jesus that tells my story. Faith, my friend, is always involved in everything we confess in our faith, including the truthfulness of the story about Jesus. [emphasis mine]