J. Warner Wallace tweeted this post from Al Mohler, which talks about the scholarly review of a recent discovery.
Excerpt:
Last week, the Harvard Theological Review released a much-delayed series of articles on the fragment. After a series of investigations undertaken by diverse scholars, the general judgment claimed by Professor King is that the fragment probably is not a forgery — or at least that it dates back to ancient times. The analysis suggested that the fragment dated from about four centuries later than Professor King had first suggested. This would place the fragment, if authentic, in the context of eighth-century Egypt — hundreds of years after the New Testament was written and completed.
The language used by the national media in reporting the story this time reveals the lack of confidence now placed in the fragment. The Boston Globe reported that the tests “have turned up no evidence of modern forgery,” but the reporter had to acknowledge that at least one of the scholars writing in the Harvard Theological Review insisted that the fragment is not only a forgery, but an amateurish effort. The New York Times ran a story that featured a headline announcing that the fragment “is more likely ancient than fake.” Note the uncertainty evident even in the headline.
In her major article released last week, Professor King defended the fragment’s authenticity, but acknowledged that — all previous sensationalism aside — “It is not entirely clear, however, how many women are referred to [in the fragment], who they are, precisely what is being said about them, or what larger issues are under consideration.”
This is a very different message than was sent back in 2012. Professor King now acknowledges that all the references to females in the fragment might be “deployed metaphorically as figures of the Church, or heavenly Wisdom, or symbolically/typologically as brides of Christ or even mothers.” In other words, the fragment might not even conflict with Christian orthodoxy.
The most declarative article in the Harvard Theological Review, however, dismisses the entire fragment as a modern forgery. Professor Leo Depuydt of Brown University argues that the fragment’s authenticity is “out of the question.” He points to several factors, including the fact that a set of typographical errors in the fragment matches a set of errors in an online edition of the “Gospel of Thomas,” an ancient Gnostic text. Depuydt put the chances of coincidence with respect to these errors as one in a trillion. Depuydt states that he “has not the slightest doubt that the document is a forgery, and not a very good one at that.”
Taken as a whole, the issue of the Harvard Theological Review released last week includes some scholars who stalwartly defend the fragment as authentic, some who argue that there is no convincing proof that it is a forgery, and at least one who argues that the case for authenticity is laughable.
Previously when I blogged about this I noted that like sensational fiction writer Dan Brown, Karen King is a feminist, and anxious to insert women into more prominent roles in Christian history.
Mohler picked up on it too:
The larger background includes the fact that Professor King has devoted much of her scholarly career to making a case that the early church falsely constructed an orthodox understanding of Jesus that minimized the role of women. Back in 2003 she released The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, in which she argued that at least some ancient texts pointed to Mary Magdalene as an apostle. In 2012 she told the writer for Smithsonian: “You’re talking to someone who’s trying to integrate a whole set of ‘heretical’ literature into the standard history.”
Professor King, along with others such as Professor Elaine Pagels of Princeton University, reject traditional Christianity and have turned time and again to ancient Gnostic documents, such as were found in 1945 in Nag Hammadi in Egypt, to argue that early Christianity marginalized some theological voices and standardized doctrinal orthodoxy in order to maintain doctrinal purity.
I think this is why media outlets, who are sympathetic with this goal, would trumpet an eighth century discovery over the 1st century gospels. Let me be clear. Nothing from the eight century can be considered authentic if it contradicts multiple, independent first century sources. The only thing driving the media frenzy on this discovery is feminism, pure and simple.
I just want to say that I don’t always agree with Al Mohler, especially on marriage and men’s rights issues, where I think his exegesis of the Bible is overly influenced by liberal feminism. So to have him agreeing with me on King’s “scholarship” is a good thing.
Dr. Wallace influences students across the country through his textbook on intermediate Greek grammar. It has become the standard textbook in the English-speaking world on that subject. He is a member of the Society of New Testament Studies, the Institute for Biblical Research, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Evangelical Theological Society.
[…]He has been a consultant on four different Bible translations.
[…] He works extensively in textual criticism, and has founded The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (csntm.org), an institute with an initial purpose of preserving Scripture by taking digital photographs of all known Greek New Testament manuscripts.
[…]His postdoctoral work includes work on Greek grammar at Tyndale House in Cambridge, textual criticism studies at the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster, and the Universität Tübingen, Germany.
Eric Chabot, who blogs at Think Apologetics, found this interview that addresses the charge you often hear about how you can’t get back to the original New Testament documents.
It talks about:
textual criticism
number of New Testament manuscripts
earliest New Testament manuscripts
the number and impact of textual variants
responding to the “telephone game” objection
responding to the scribes tampered with the text objection
And here is an article by Dr. Wallace that corrects other misconceptions about the transmission and translation of the Testament.
He lists five in particular:
Myth 1: The Bible has been translated so many times we can’t possibly get back to the original.
Myth 2: Words in red indicate the exact words spoken by Jesus of Nazareth.
Myth 3: Heretics have severely corrupted the text.
Myth 4: Orthodox scribes have severely corrupted the text.
Myth 5: The deity of Christ was invented by emperor Constantine.
Finally, a quote from skeptical historian Bart Ehrman, as reproduced in this post on the Christian Apologetics Alliance blog:
The curious thing about Bart Ehrman is that the views he articulates in his popular-level work are not the same as those he espouses in his professional/scholarly publications. Indeed, readers may find this curious and very telling quotation, taken from the appendix (p. 252) of Misquoting Jesus, of interest:
“Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.” [Emphasis added]
Finally, I think that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls shows us that religious texts don’t change as much as we think they do over time.
Look:
The Dead Sea Scrolls play a crucial role in assessing the accurate preservation of the Old Testament. With its hundreds of manuscripts from every book except Esther, detailed comparisons can be made with more recent texts.
The Old Testament that we use today is translated from what is called the Masoretic Text. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars who between A.D. 500 and 950 gave the Old Testament the form that we use today. Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, the oldest Hebrew text of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Aleppo Codex which dates to A.D. 935.{5}
With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now had manuscripts that predated the Masoretic Text by about one thousand years. Scholars were anxious to see how the Dead Sea documents would match up with the Masoretic Text. If a significant amount of differences were found, we could conclude that our Old Testament Text had not been well preserved. Critics, along with religious groups such as Muslims and Mormons, often make the claim that the present day Old Testament has been corrupted and is not well preserved. According to these religious groups, this would explain the contradictions between the Old Testament and their religious teachings.
After years of careful study, it has been concluded that the Dead Sea Scrolls give substantial confirmation that our Old Testament has been accurately preserved. The scrolls were found to be almost identical with the Masoretic text. Hebrew Scholar Millar Burrows writes, “It is a matter of wonder that through something like one thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, ‘Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition.'”{6}
A significant comparison study was conducted with the Isaiah Scroll written around 100 B.C. that was found among the Dead Sea documents and the book of Isaiah found in the Masoretic text. After much research, scholars found that the two texts were practically identical. Most variants were minor spelling differences, and none affected the meaning of the text.
One of the most respected Old Testament scholars, the late Gleason Archer, examined the two Isaiah scrolls found in Cave 1 and wrote, “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”{7}
Despite the thousand year gap, scholars found the Masoretic Text and Dead Sea Scrolls to be nearly identical. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide valuable evidence that the Old Testament had been accurately and carefully preserved.
I hope that this post will help those who think that we can’t get back to the text of the original New Testament documents.
The MP3 file can be obtained from Apologetics 315.
There is not much snark in this summary, because Crossley is a solid scholar, and very fair with the evidence. He’s also done debates with Richard Bauckham and Michael Bird. You have to respect him for getting out there and defending his views in public.
SUMMARY
William Lane Craig’s opening speech
Two contentions:
There are four minimal facts that are accepted by most historians
The best explanation of the four minimal facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead
Contention 1 of 2:
Fact 1: The burial
The burial is multiply attested
The burial is based on the early source material that Mark used for his gospel
Scholars date this Markan source to within 10 years of the crucifixion
The burial is also in the early passage in 1 Cor 15:3-8
So you have 5 sources, some of which are very early
The burial is credited to a member of the Sanhedrin
the burial is probable because shows an enemy of the church doing right
this makes it unlikely to to be an invention
Fact 2: The empty tomb
The burial story supports the empty tomb
the site of Jesus’ grave was known
the disciples could not proclaim a resurrection if the body were still in it
the antagonists to the early Christians could have produced the body
The empty tomb is multiple attested
it’s mentioned explicitly in Mark
it’s in the separate sources used by Matthew and John
it’s in the early sermons documented in Acts
it’s implied by 1 Cor 15:3-8, because resurrection requires that the body is missing
The empty tomb was discovered by women
the testimony of women of women was not normally allowed in courts of law
if this story was being made up, they would have chosen male disciples
The empty tomb discover lacks legendary embellishment
there is no theological or apologetical reflection on the meaning of the tomb
The early Jewish response implies that the tomb was empty
the response was that the disciples stole the body
that requires that the tomb was found empty
Fact 3: The appearances to individuals and groups, some of the them hostile
The list of appearances is in 1 Cor 15:3-8
this material is extremely early, withing 1-3 years after the cross
James, the brother of Jesus, was not a believer when he got his appearance
Paul was hostile to the early church when he got his appearance
Specific appearances are multiply attested
Peter: attested by Luke and Paul
The twelve: attested by Luke, John and Paul
The women: attested by Matthew and John
Fact 4: The early belief in the resurrection emerged in a hostile environment
There was no background belief in a dying Messiah
There was no background belief in a single person resurrecting before the general resurrection of all of the righteous at the end of the age
The disciples were willing to die for their belief in the resurrection of Jesus
The resurrection is the best explanation for the transformation of the disciples from frightened to reckless of death
Contention 2 of 2:
The resurrection is the best explanation because it passes C.B. McCullough’s six tests for historical explanations
None of the naturalistic explanations accounts for the minimal facts as well as the resurrection
James Crossley’s opening speech
Appeals to the majority of scholars doesn’t prove anything
the majority of people in the west are Christians so of course there are a majority of scholars that support the resurrection
there are Christian schools where denial of the resurrection can result in termination
The best early sources (1 Cor 15:3-8 and Mark) are not that good
1 Cor 15:3-8 doesn’t support the empty tomb
verse 4 probably does imply a bodily resurrection
the passage does have eyewitnesses to appearances of Jesus
but there are no eyewitnesses to the empty tomb in this source
appearances occur in other cultures in different times and places
Jesus viewed himself as a martyr
his followers may have had hallucinations
Mark 16:1-8
Mark is dated to the late 30s and early 40s
The women who discover the tomb tell no one about the empty tomb
The gospels show signs of having things added to them
Jewish story telling practices allowed the teller to make things up to enhance their hero
one example of this would be the story of the earthquake and the people coming out of their graves
that story isn’t in Mark, nor any external sources like Josephus
if there really was a mass resurrection, where are these people today?
so this passage in Matthew clearly shows that at least some parts of the New Testament could involve
what about the contradiction between the women tell NO ONE and yet other people show up at the empty tomb
the story about Jesus commissioning the early church to evangelize Gentiles was probably added
there are also discrepancies in the timing of events and appearances
why are there explicit statements of high Christology in John, but not in the earlier sources?
William Lane Craig’s first rebuttal
Crossley’s response to the burial: he accepts it
Crossley’s response to the empty tomb: he thinks it was made up
rabbinical stories are not comparable to the gospel accounts
the rabbinical stories are just anecdotal creative story-telling
the gospels are ancient biographies – the genre is completely different
the rabbinic miracle stories are recorded much later than the gospels
the rabbi’s legal and moral ideas were written down right away
the miracle stories were written down a century or two later
in contrast, the miracle stories about Jesus are in the earliest sources, like Mark
the rabbinical stories are intended as entertainment, not history
the gospels are intended as biography
just because there are some legendary/apocalyptic elements in Matthew, it doesn’t undermine things like the crucfixion that are historically accurate
Crossley’s response to the evidence for the empty tomb:
no response to the burial
the empty tomb cannot be made up, it was implied by Paul early on
the women wouldn’t have said nothing forever – they eventually talked after they arrived to where the disciples were
no response to the lack of embellishment
no response to the early Jewish polemic
Crossley’s response to the appearances
he agrees that the first followers of Jesus had experiences where they thought Jesus was still alive
Crossley’s response to the early belief in the bodily resurrection:
no response about how this belief in a resurrection could have emerged in the absence of background belief in the death of the Messiah and the resurrection of one man before the general resurrection of all the righteous at the end of the age
What about Crossley’s hallucination theory?
Crossley says that the followers of Jesus had visions, and they interpreted these visions against the story of the Maccabean martyrs who looked forward to their own resurrections
but the hallucination hypothesis doesn’t account for the empty tomb
and the Maccabean martyrs were not expecting the resurrection of one man, and certainly not the Messiah – so that story doesn’t provide the right background belief for a hallucination of a single resurrected person prior to the end of the age
if the appearances were non-physical, the disciples would not have applied the word resurrection – it would just have been a vision
the visions could easily be reconciled with the idea that somehow God was pleased with Jesus and that he had some glorified/vindicated non-corporeal existence – but not resurrection
not only that, the hallucination hypothesis doesn’t even explain the visions, because there were visions to groups, to skeptics and to enemies in several places
What about the argument that only Christians accept the resurrection?
it’s an ad hominem attack that avoids the arguments
James Crossley’s first rebuttal
Regarding the burial:
I could be persuaded of that the burial account is accurate
Regarding the non-expectation of a suffering/dying Messiah:
Jesus thought he was going to die
this thinking he was going to die overturned all previous Messianic expectations that the Messiah wouldn’t suffer or die
the early Jews could easily reconcile the idea of a suffering, dead man killed by the Romans with the power of the all-powerful Messiah who supposed to reign forever
no actually bodily resurrection would have to happen to get them to continue to identify an executed corpse with the role of Messiah
Regarding the belief in the bodily resurrection:
it would be natural for Jews, who believed in a general resurrection of all the rigtheous dead at the end of the age, to interpret a non-physical vision of one man after he died as a bodily resurrection, even though no Jew had ever considered the resurrection of one man before the general resurrection before Jesus
Regarding the testimony of the women:
Just because women were not able to testify in courts of law (unless there were no male witnesses), the early church might still invent a story where the women are the first witnesses
first, the disciples had fled the scene, so only the women were left
and it would have been a good idea for the early church to invent women as the first witnesses – the fact that they could not testify in court makes them ideal witnesses and very persuasive
also, it’s a good idea to invent women as witnesses, because the Romans had a rule that said that they never killed women, so they wouldn’t have killed these women – Romans only ever kill men
in any case, the first witness to the empty tomb is angel, so as long as people could talk to the angel as being the first witness, that’s the best story to invent
Regarding the consensus of Christian scholars:
I am not saying that Craig’s facts are wrong, just that appealing to consensus is not legitimate
he has to appeal to the evidence, not the consensus
Regarding my naturalistic bias:
I don’t know or care if naturalism is true, let’s look at the evidence
Regarding the genre of the gospels:
the creative story-telling is common in all genres, it’s not a genre in itself
stuff about Roman emperors also has creative story-telling
Regarding the legendary nature of the empty tomb in Mark:
First, Christians interpreted the visions as a bodily resurrection
Second, they invented the story of the empty tomb to go with that interpretation
Third, they died for their invention
William Lane Craig’s second rebuttal
The burial:
Bill’s case doesn’t need to know the specifics of the burial, only that the location was known
the location is important because it supports the empty tomb
to proclaim a resurrection, the tomb would have to be empty
a tomb with a known location is easier to check
The empty tomb:
creative story telling was common in Judaism: retelling OT stories (midrash), romances/novels, rabbinical anecdotes
but the gospels are none of these genres – the gospels are ancient biographies
Craig also gave five arguments as to why the tomb was empty
the burial story supports the empty tomb
there is multiple independent attestation, then it cannot be a creative fiction invented in Mark alone
the witnesses were in Jerusalem, so they were in a position to know
regarding the women, even though Jesus respected the women, their testimony would not be convincing to others, so why invent a story where they are the witnesses
the male disciples did not flee the scene, for example, Peter was there to deny Jesus three times
if the story is made up, who cares what the male disciples did, just invent them on the scene anyway
the angel is not authoritative, because the angel cannot be questioned, but the women can be questioned
there was no response on the lack of embellishment
there was no response to the earliest Jewish response implying that the tomb was empty
The appearances:
we agree on the appearances
The early belief in the resurrection:
he says that Jesus predicted his own death
yes, but that would only cause people to think that he was a martyr, not that he was the messiah – something else is needed for them to keep their believe that he was the Messiah even after he died, because the Messiah wasn’t supposed to die
and of course, there was no expectation of a single person rising from the dead before the general resurrection, and certainly not the Messiah
The consensus of scholars:
Jewish scholars like Geza Vermes and Pinchas Lapide accept these minimal facts like the empty tomb, it’s not just Christian scholars
Against Crossley’s hallucination hypothesis:
it doesn’t explain the empty the tomb
it doesn’t explain the early belief in the resurrection
hallucinations would only lead to the idea that God had exalted/glorified Jesus, not that he was bodily raised from the dead
the hallucination theory cannot accommodate all of the different kinds of appearances; individual, group, skeptic, enemy, etc.
The pre-supposition of naturalism:
if Crossley is not committed to naturalism, then he should be open to the minimal facts and to the best explanation of those facts
the hallucination hypothesis has too many problems
the resurrection hypothesis explains everything, and well
James Crossley’s second rebuttal
Religious pluralism:
well, there are lots of other religious books
those other religious books have late sources, and are filled with legends and myths, and no eyewitness testimony
so why should we trust 1 Cor 15 and the early source for Mark and the other early eyewitness testimony in the New Testament?
if other religious books can be rejected for historical reasons, then surely the New Testament can be rejected for historical reasons
Genre:
the genre of ancient biography can incorporate and commonly incorporates invented legendaryt story-telling
this is common in Roman, Greek and Jewish literature and everyone accepts that
Empty tomb: multiple attestation
ok, so maybe the empty tomb is multiply attested, but that just gets back to a belief, not to a fact
multiple attestation is not the only criteria, and Craig needs to use the other criteria to make his case stronger
Empty tomb: invented
if there is a belief in the resurrection caused by the visions, then the empty tomb would have to be invented
why aren’t there more reliable stories of people visiting the empty tomb in more sources?
Empty tomb: role of the women
there are women who have an important role in the Bible, like Judith and Esther
Mark’s passage may have used women who then kept silent in order to explain why no one knew where the empty tomb was
if the fleeing of the men is plausible to explain the women, then why not use that? why appeal to the supernatural?
we should prefer any explanation that is naturalistic even if it is not as good as the supernatural explanation at explaining everything
Empty tomb: embellishment
well there is an angel there, that’s an embellishment
anyway, when you say there is no embellishment, what are you comparing it to that makes you say that?
Appearances: anthropology
I’ve read anthropology literature that has some cases where people have hallucinations as groups
Appearances: theology
the hallucinations would not be interpreted against the background theological beliefs that ruled out the resurrection of one man before then general resurrection of all the righteous dead
these hallucinations could have been so compelling that they made the earliest Christians, and skeptics like James, and enemies like the Pharisee Paul abandon all of their previous background beliefs, proclaim the new doctrine of a crucified and resurrected Messiah which no one had ever expected, and then gone on to die for that belief
the hallucinations could have changed all of their theology and reversed all of their beliefs about the what the word resurrection meant
William Lane Craig’s conclusion
Supernaturalism:
None of the four facts are supernatural, they are natural, and ascertained by historians using normal historical methods
the supernatural part only comes in after we decide on the facts when we are deciding which explanation is the best
a tomb being found empty is not a miraculous fact
Genre:
the gospels are not analagous to these rabbinical stories, the purpose and dating is different
Empty tomb:
what multiple attestation shows is that it was not made-up by Mark
and the argument was augmented with other criteria, like the criterion of embarrassment and the criterion of dissimilarity
Judith and Esther are very rare exceptions, normally women were not viewed as reliable witnesses
if the story was invented, whatever purpose the inventors had would have been better served by inventing male witnesses
Craig grants that the angel may be an embellishment for the sake of argument, but there are no other embellishments
the real embellishments occur in forged gnostic gospels in the second and third centuries, where there are theological motifs added to the bare fact of the empty tomb (e.g. – the talking cross in the Gospel of Peter)
he had no response to the earliest jewish response which implied an empty tomb
Belief in the resurrection:
there was no way for Jewish people to interpret an appearance as a bodily resurrection before the end of the world, they did not expect that
they could have imagined exaltation, but not a bodily resurrection
James Crossley’s conclusion
Supernatural explanation:
as long as there is any other other possible naturalistic explanation, we should prefer that, no matter how unlikely
Creative stories:
some of these creative stories appear within the lifetimes of the people connected to the events (none mentioned)
Embellishment:
you should compare to earlier stories when looking for embellishments, not later
and we don’t have any earlier sources, so we just don’t know the extent of the embellishment
Jewish response:
they probably just heard about the empty tomb, and didn’t check on it, then invented the stole-the-body explanation without ever checking to see if the tomb was empty or not
WINTERY KNIGHT 