Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Gospel harmonization

1. Gospel harmonization may sometimes seem to be an exercise in special pleading. Inerrantists indulge in face-saving harmonizations. Liberals say the real explanation is due to different Gospels using divergent, independent traditions. 

2. However, there are problems with the liberal explanation even on its own terms. For one thing, the mainstream view of the Synoptic problem is that Matthew and Luke use Mark as a source. When that's the case, you can't chalk the differences up to independent divergent traditions. Moreover, this isn't a conservative view of the Synoptic problem. Rather, most NT scholars all along the theological spectrum think Matthew and Luke are indebted to Mark.

3. Apropos (ii), scholars often use redaction criticism to account for Synoptic variants. But on that explanation, the difference isn't due to independent divergent traditions, but editorial activity, such as audience adaptation or narrative strategy.

4. Among other things, William F. Buckley was a novelist. He once said that in every novel he wrote he included one major coincidence. Although a coincidence is unlikely, unlikely events happen in real life, so it would be unrealistic if nothing unlikely, nothing coincidental, happened in his plots. 

By the same token, it's unlikely that Jesus was anointed twice. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Indeed, that doesn't mean there's a presumption against it. 

It's not special pleading to think the Lukan anointing is a different event from a somewhat similar event reported in Matthew, Mark, and John. That would be a striking coincidence, but that sort of thing happens in real life.

5. I think it's a worthwhile exercise to produce a chronological life of Christ based on the Gospels. However, I don't view the four Gospels as raw material for reconstructing the life of Christ. These aren't packages which were meant to be torn apart. These were written to be read as integral wholes. 

The notion of going behind the text to determine what really happened is invidious. Since, moreover, the Gospels are generally our only source of information, there are inherent limits to harmonization. We can't automatically use one Gospel as the benchmark that controls the direction of harmonization. If we have different accounts of the same event, we can't necessary say which one tells when or where it really took place, while the other represents a topical rearrangement. Sometimes there are narrative clues, but sometimes not. And it doesn't bother me if we can't always sort this out. 

6. My general position is different from both Licona's and Lydia's. On the one hand, I don't think Licona is a terribly competent exponent of the position he's promoting. And I don't like how he frames the issue, in terms of Roman bioi as a standard of comparison. In addition, his whole approach is rather flippant.

That said, there's an a priori character to Lydia's position, in terms of how she defines historicity. Essentially dictating to the Gospel authors how they are allowed to narrate history. I don't agree with Lydia's stipulative criteria. Ironically, Lydia's evidentialism is quite presuppositional in its own way. 

We need to accept Biblical history as it comes to us. Moreover, the reason the issue of Gospel harmonization crops up in the first place is because we do have variant accounts in the Gospels. It isn't based on comparing the Gospels to Roman bioi. 

The very examples that provoke these debates give us reason to make allowance for certain narrative strategies. Furthermore, we have OT counterparts. We have "synoptic" OT accounts. Parallel reports with variants. 

7. Lydia raises a valid question regarding the presence or absence of narrative clues that would indicate to the reader when the sequence is topical rather than chronological, when there's narrative compression, &c. That's a valid question, especially in reference to Licona's position. 

i) One clue involves parallel accounts. That, in itself, supplies a frame of reference. Comparing and contrasting Biblical accounts of the same events. That clues the reader to take these differences into consideration. The very phenomena that give rise to this discussion provides a backdrop.

ii) But there's also the question of what a reader was entitled to expect. It is reasonable for a 1C reader to presume the sequence is chronological unless there's some literary notice to the contrary? Is it reasonable for a 1C reader to presume the record is unabbreviated unless there's some literary notice to the contrary? I don't think so.

8. To judge by Lydia's discussion of Licona's video presentation (which I haven't watched), there appear to be some similarities between what he is saying and evangelical NT scholars say. In that respect it's not out in left field.

Take the cleansing of the temple. Both Keener, in his commentary on John (1:518), and Block, in his recent commentary on Mark (291n498), think this was a single event, which John transposes. Likewise, both Craig Blomberg, in The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (2nd ed., 216ff.), and Vern Poythress, in Inerrancy and the Gospels (133ff.), regard that a legitimate interpretive option. 

Likewise, in reference to the healing of the centurion's son, the explanation that Luke is more detailed, that it was emissaries who spoke on behalf of the centurion, whereas Matthew, through narrative compression, collapses that distinction, is a standard evangelical harmonization. That's defended by scholars like Bock ("Precision and Accuracy"), Blomberg (ibid. 176), and Poythress (ibid. 17ff.). That's the function of spokesmen. And 1C readers would be expected to share that cultural preunderstanding. 

I'm not using that as an argument from authority. The fact that I can cite conservative scholars who take that position doesn't make it correct. But I wonder how conversant Lydia is with the landscape of evangelical Biblical scholarship. 

Again, it's a good thing to have folks from a different discipline interact with Biblical scholarship. Biblical scholarship can become ingrown and hidebound. It's useful to have a fresh perspective. 

9) Regarding the withering of the fig tree, we need to distinguish between what Matthew actually says and what a reader imagines. It's natural for readers to form mental images of what they read. And I think that's a good practice.

So a reader might visualize the fig tree shriveling up right before the disciples' eyes in a matter of moments. That, however, is not what Matthew says. We need to differentiate how we picture the event from how Matthew depicts the event. Matthew's description is much vaguer.

10) Lydia says:

The difficulty is that apparently this same anointing, which John appears to place on the Saturday before the triumphal entry, is quite explicitly stated to have happened two days before the Passover in Mark 14, and Mark is extremely chronological in his telling of the events of Passion Week.

i) Assuming these are chronologically discordant accounts (of the same event), it would be a case of temporal transposition. I think Matthew, Mark, and John refer to the same event. Luke's anointing account refers to a different event. 

ii) Since John's account seems to be more firmly grounded in the setting, his would be the chronologically accurate version, while Matthew and Mark transposed it for thematic reasons–unless they didn't know when it actually happened. Events can be related in different ways. 

iii) However, as one scholar observes: 

The dinner during which Jesus was anointed (Jn 12:2-8) occurred in all probability on Saturday evening…It would be a mistake to conclude from Mt 26:2 ('after two days comes the Passover') and its parallel in Mk 14:1, that Jesus was anointed instead on Tuesday evening…For whereas the chronological marker of Jn 12:1 ('six days before…')is directly related to the anointing (12:2-8), that of Mt 26:2 ('after two days') is directly related to the plot to kill Jesus (26:3-5) and neither Mt 26:6-13 nor Mk 14:3-9 expressly relates the anointing to its context in chronological terms. K. Chamblin, Matthew: A Mentor Commentary (CFP 2010), 2:1270.

11) Lydia says:

For example, if John knowingly shifted Jesus' cleansing of the Temple by three years to the beginning of his ministry (which would seem to be precisely the sort of thing Licona means by "displacement") and no such cleansing took place then, that is a _serious_ failure of historical reliability, and frankly, if you or Licona or anybody else defines "reliability" differently, you can just have your concept, and I'll stick with mine.

But that confounds narrative sequence with chronological sequence. In the Synoptics, the cleansing of the temple is firmly grounded in the narrative setting. By contrast, it doesn't have those chronological connectives in John. It isn't linked to what precedes it or follows it. So readers don't have to right to presume that it must have taken place at that juncture. The narrative itself doesn't make that claim. 

12) Lydia says:

The question is just whether Jairus already knew, and said at the outset, that his daughter was dead, or whether he said that she was on the point of dying.

i) For starters, the notion that Matthew's account on the incident reflects narrative compression is a standard evangelical harmonization. That's not just Licona. 

ii) In addition, we need to distinguish between direct and indirect discourse. Between what the narrator says and what he quotes a character saying.

Inerrancy doesn't not entail that whatever a character says is true. Inerrancy primarily refers to the narrator.

Inerrancy doesn't mean Jairus is inerrant in how he expressed himself. Jairus wasn't speaking under divine inspiration.

This, in turn, raises the question of how a narrator should quote a speaker. There's a paradoxical sense in which, if someone makes an inaccurate statement, an accurate quote may preserve the inaccuracy. If you're quoting someone, you're not necessarily endorsing what they say. Rather, you're simply reporting what they said. If they made an inaccurate statement, that's what you report.

On the other hand, there might be occasions where, out of charity, a narrator will correct an incorrect statement when quoting a person based on what the person intended to say. Sometimes it's clear what a speaker meant to say, even if he misspoke or expressed himself poorly.


So, when quoting a character, there are occasions when it would be appropriate for the narrator to improve on the original statement. It's not a verbatim quote. Rather, it's what the speaker meant to say, but failed to say. A narrator might clarify what he meant by restating it. That's an editorial judgment call.

31 comments:

  1. Steve, I think you should watch Licona's lecture before you imply that I am representing him as less mainstream than he is. (For the record, I'm really not terribly interested in how mainstream he is or isn't but rather in the truth of the matter, but you seem to be interested in it, so you should watch his lecture.)

    Again, as I said in the original post, there are different meanings of "compression." Saying that Matthew merely spoke in a brief or imprecise way concerning the centurion and his servants is _not_ all that Licona's definitions mean. No doubt he will sometimes claim that that is all that he means, but that isn't what his definitions say nor what his other language says. I emphasized again and again the use of terms like "brushed out" the servants and "has the centurion come to Jesus directly." There is a _deliberateness_ about this hypothesis that is not present in merely saying that Matthew spoke in a more compressed fashion or that Matthew used a figure of speech. I go into all of this in the post.

    Ditto for Jairus. There is a big difference between Matthew's just writing a briefer version and saying imprecisely that Jairus said she was dead (maybe because, for all we can tell, that's how he actually remembered it) and Matthew's thinking to himself, "I know that Jairus said she was dying *and didn't* say that she was dead, but I want to tell this story more briefly, so I'll say that he said she was dead at the outset and write as if that's how it happened." The broader hypothesis (which could allow any number of reasons for Matthew's writing a briefer account) needs to be kept sharply distinct from the deliberate hypothesis. The latter is (I would like to think anyone could recognize) far more problematic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. On the cleansing of the Temple, your hypothesis (if I understand you correctly) seems to be that John is *not* trying to give the impression that it took place early in Jesus' ministry. Now, I disagree with this fairly strongly, but more importantly, it must be _sharply_ distinguished between saying that John _moved_ the cleansing of the Temple *to the beginning of Jesus' ministry*. The two hypotheses are, in fact, in complete contradiction to one another! The latter says that John _was_ attempting to write as if the Temple cleansing took place at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, even though he knew that this was not the case! Your hypothesis, in contrast, interprets John as _not_ implying that the cleansing took place at the beginning of Jesus' ministry.

    Now, I disagree with this. For one thing, we don't have nearly the evidence for John in other, uncontroversial places, that we have for Matthew that he arranges non-chronologically, so why think he is making such a major non-chronological move here? More specifically, the narrative of the Temple cleansing in John is flanked on either side with geographical markers that are far more reasonably interpreted by holding this to be a chronological narrative. Just before, Jesus is in Capernaum, following which he goes "up" to Jerusalem (not meaning north, of course) for the Passover. In the next chapter we find him apparently still in Jerusalem and visited by Nicodemus by night, following which he has a baptizing ministry in Judea, leaving Judea only at the beginning of chapter 4. All of this makes sense as following upon the Passover recounted along with the temple cleansing in chapter 2.

    The end of chapter 2 says that many were believing on him during that Passover because of miracles he was doing during that Passover and then only that he "did not entrust himself to them because he knew what was in man." As a description of passion week, this seems quite implausible. Mark's detailed discussion of Passion week gives no such picture.

    It seems to me extremely strained to try to make the cleansing of the Temple in John be occurring during Passion week and merely for (largely unknown and necessarily highly conjectural) thematic reasons of some kind or other narrated at this point in John's gospel. And, strangely and coincidentally enough, connected up with a Judean ministry immediately thereafter!

    However, if you _do_ take that position, you are *at least* not saying that John was *trying* to imply that this Temple cleansing happened early in Jesus' ministry. So that theory should *not* be described by saying that John knowingly and deliberately "moves the Temple cleansing to the early part of Jesus' ministry." Again, that is a _much_ more problematic theory from the perspective of John's trustworthiness as a narrator.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Similarly, concerning the fig tree, I'm open to _several_ reasonable harmonizations and would never have written a post if all that Licona were saying were something like what you say.

    "
    So a reader might visualize the fig tree shriveling up right before the disciples' eyes in a matter of moments. That, however, is not what Matthew says. We need to differentiate how we picture the event from how Matthew depicts the event. Matthew's description is much vaguer."

    Right. So "immediately" might have not meant "right that minute," for example. I have heard this harmonization and would have to look into whether I agree that that is true of the Greek word. Alternatively, which I suggest right in the post, perhaps it *began* to shrivel right that minute but was seen only the next day to be totally shriveled from the roots up (which I believe is Mark's phrase).

    What I _do_ write against is "compression" *as Licona's lecture defines it*, which in this case would mean Matthew's saying to himself, "I know nothing happened until later and we only saw it shriveled the next day, and I know that 'immediately' to my readers will mean 'right that minute', but I'm going to write that it shriveled immediately anyway, because I want to write a shorter account and not get into all that next day stuff."

    *That* is what I am writing against.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because I respect what you and Tim have accomplished in apologetics I'm hesitant to contradict you. I'm not sure my comments advance the discussion. Nevertheless, here goes.

      In our modern way of writing history the above would be considered dishonest. But isn't Licona's point that during the 1st century it would have been an understood and acceptable practice which would not have been considered dishonest (seeing that it conformed to contemporary literary conventions)? This seems more consistent with some view of inerrancy (though certainly not Geisler's) than your view which can allow for unintentional mistakes on the part of the writers of Scripture (who are supposed to be inspired).

      I don't think that the truth of Christianity hinges on the truth of inerrancy. Nevertheless, I think we ought to do our best to affirm and defend inerrancy (something which I believe and am committed to by faith). Though, I can see how both you and Tim (on evidentialism) would rather allow for errors in Scripture if it preserved the general reliability of the authors of Scripture (as you understand *reliability*) in order to be able to defend the truth of Christianity on historical grounds. Though, I think affirming the integrity of Scripture is more important (in that it protects believers and best honors God) than being able to persuade non-believers of the plausibility of Christianity.

      I agree with Steve when he wrote: "Lydia's evidentialism is quite presuppositional in its own way."

      Who are we to say that in his inspiration and providential guidance of the writing of Scripture the Holy Spirit couldn't use some of the literary devices Licona appeals to IF in fact the Biblical authors used them? It seems to me that unintentional errors creeping into Scripture seems more damning (or problematic) than intentional cases of compression, transferral and displacement on the part of the Biblical authors.

      Having said that, I do take your warnings (HERE) seriously.

      I too would be interested in hearing what Steve would have to say were he to watch the Licona lecture. I wonder if Steve would lean more towards you or Licona afterwards.

      Delete
    2. Annoyed, I do not think that Licona has provided _anything remotely close to_ a good argument that these so-called "literary conventions" even existed at all. To the extent that he has provided some weak argument, what it is a weak argument for is what I think should rather be called something like "taking liberties with history"--again, to the extent that it was deliberate.

      I think it is _incredibly_ dubious that a 1st-century audience would consider it an "accepted practice" to take such deliberate liberties with history (making up the entire incident of the saints' rising, deliberately saying that something happened on a different day from the day when you know it happened, and so forth), and calling such liberties "literary devices" simply obscures the problem. But *if*, per virtually impossible, the original audience actually wouldn't have cared if the apostles _made things up_ about when Jesus did something, when something happened, whether people actually said things, and so forth, then they _should_ have cared.

      Redefining "reliability" and "error" and so forth to such a radical extent merely tries to get us to ignore the question of whether and why we should care about reliability, truthful eyewitness testimony, etc., in the more ordinary sense of witnesses who _don't deliberately say that things happened differently from the way that they know they did happen_.

      I contend that we should care deeply about this, that it has major apologetic and religious implications to accept it, and that saying that the "original audience wouldn't have cared" is merely evading the problem, as well as being extremely implausible.

      I have typed out a great deal about these matters in the thread at What's Wrong With the World. I will link a couple of those comments here, and I strongly encourage you to go and read more in that thread if interested. And please read my main post again carefully if interested, because I think it makes an argument that perhaps you are not fully appreciating. In addition to the main post, see here:

      http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2016/02/gospel_fictionalization_theory.html#comment-305077

      http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2016/02/gospel_fictionalization_theory.html#comment-305086

      http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2016/02/gospel_fictionalization_theory.html#comment-305123

      And other comments in the thread.

      Delete
    3. At the risk of repeating myself too often, Annoyed, I'll try saying this another way: The phrase "literary convention" doesn't do any _work_ to remove legitimate concerns about historical reliability and indetectible fabrication in the text.

      We can see this quite easily by exaggeration. Suppose that I came along and said that I had done a lot of research and concluded that ancient Roman authors sometimes just made up a whole incident, recounted it with a lot of verismilitude, and then plopped it down in the midst of a putatively historical narrative without any warning or other indication, making it look just like it happened. Suppose I called this a "literary device" and even *gave it a name*. This should make no difference to the fact that I am in essence asserting that at this point the historicity of whole incidents in ancient documents is up for grabs, no matter how realistic they appear and even if I declare the genre to be history!

      Obviously, this is a _problem_ when it comes to using those documents to know what in the world really happened! Just calling it a "literary device" and reifying it, saying that it's a "thing" that "exists" in ancient documents, does not help in any way.

      Suppose I applied my theory of this "literary device" to the gospels and said that the feeding of the five thousand might be inserted out of whole cloth by this "literary device." Or Jesus' turning water into wine, or the cleansing of the Temple, or whatever. Surely you can see that that would be a problem for knowing the events of the life of Christ from reading the gospels. I hope you can see that, and I hope you can see that that should be of both apologetic and religious concern.

      Well, if you grant that, then I think you can also see that saying that this was a "literary device" does not remove those concerns.

      Licona comes close to this already in his saying that Matthew inserted the incident of the saints' rising. His assertions that John and others changed dates and deliberately made things appear to have happened in ways that they knew they did not happen create, I have argued, major problems for our taking the gospels to be reliable.

      Merely calling these "literary devices" does not remove these problems. And if one concluded that Plutarch or anyone else used these "literary devices," that would just mean that such problems applied to their texts as well. But that, of course, would be less of a problem, globally, than concluding the same about the gospels.

      I think there is this very unfortunate tendency to think that saying that "literary devices exist" solves some kind of problem here, but it really doesn't.

      Delete
    4. Obviously, this is a _problem_ when it comes to using those documents to know what in the world really happened! Just calling it a "literary device" and reifying it, saying that it's a "thing" that "exists" in ancient documents, does not help in any way.

      We don't need to know what exactly happened to know what generally happened. And it's not a requirement to know what exactly happened. Also, Licona implied (if not stated) that the literary conventions for writing history which he alluded to had limits in the 1st century. There was a point at which one moves from history to wholecloth fabrication.

      Licona comes close to this already in his saying that Matthew inserted the incident of the saints' rising.

      I disagree with Licona's conclusions. I agree with Steve (if i recall correctly) that Licona used the right methods but drew a wrong conclusion. Whereas Geisler used the wrong (or incomplete) methods and came to the right conclusion. It's logically possible that Some of Licona's claims of literary devices are true even if not all of them are. Similarly, it's possible for some of his interpretations and applications to be true even if not all of them are (e.g. his views regarding Matthew's resurrection of the saints).

      Delete
    5. "We don't need to know what exactly happened to know what generally happened. And it's not a requirement to know what exactly happened. "

      I'm sorry, but this is facile. If we think that gospel authors are making up where, when, and how things happened, *of course* this lessens the value of what they write as historical testimony. This definitely weakens the case for what they claim, because it greatly fuzzifies all notions of "what they claimed." For example, as I pointed out in the main post, why (given Licona's methods) think that John is even asserting that Mary the sister of Lazarus was the one who anointed Jesus' feet? Maybe that's just something he changed. Maybe he "transferred" the event to Mary as well as "transferring" it to Saturday.

      What do we mean by "what generally happened" if one author says that something happened three years apart from when another author said it happened?

      And, as I have argued at length, we suffer a great loss in apologetic value if we hold that the eyewitness accounts in the gospels are right only about some extremely broad (and fuzzy) notion of "what generally happened" but are deliberately changing any, all, or most of the surrounding details. Details are important to historical veracity and legitimate historical verismilitude. My knowledge that Jesus rose from the dead is partly based on details, such as that he ate fish with the disciples. If they made up that detail, part of my evidence for the physicality of the resurrection is removed.

      History and our confidence in history is not just based on vague accounts. It is rightly based upon a multiplicity of lines of support, upon our confidence in the witnesses, and that confidence is strengthened by their veracity concerning matters of detail. That is part of what makes their evidence strong.

      Delete
    6. Would anyone accept, in matters of daily life, a standard of witness truthfulness such that the deliberate falsification of detail, indetectable in the testimony itself, did not matter? Would you accept that from a witness at a trial? What about from a friend who claimed to have witnessed an extremely important event? If he was forced to admit, after you noticed a discrepancy with someone else's account, "Oh, yeah, I told you that happened on Saturday even though I knew it happened on Wednesday because I wanted to make my overall set of stories flow more smoothly," would you say, "Hey, dude, no problem, I know I can trust you to tell me truthfully what _generally_ happened even though you _intentionally made it look like it happened on the wrong day_ "? If Christians don't understand why the at least attempted truthfulness of the gospel writers, even on such matters of detail as when something happened, matters and why it would matter if they *deliberately fictionalized* their accounts in the gospels on such points (the gospels, those paradigmatically historical documents), then we have a _huge_ problem in Christian apologetics and Christian teaching. And I'm beginning to fear that we do, in fact, have such a huge problem.

      Delete
    7. Respectfully, for someone who (as I understand you and Tim) doesn't want to be take a stand on inerrancy, you're arguing like an inerrantist. I think that's a good thing. However, it seems to me that you're arguments prove too much. Though you make a distinction and difference between compression (of which certain kinds you'll allow for) and more radical things like transferral and displacement, your arguments and examples against the latter seem to render the former (compression) problematic as well. For example, Matthew saying Jairus' daughter was already dead, and other gospels saying she was dying and then having emissaries later informing everyone she had recently died.

      Would anyone accept, in matters of daily life, a standard of witness truthfulness such that the deliberate falsification of detail, indetectable in the testimony itself, did not matter? Would you accept that from a witness at a trial?

      But the Gospels aren't a record of ordinary life. More than mere historical records, they are also works of theology with a theological agenda as well as including theological interpretations of the historical events they relate. They weren't written to satisfy modern forensic criteria (though, amazing they often do). The authors weren't completely objective and unbiased reporters. They knew the reality of the miracles of Christ and the Apostles and wrote about them in a way they thought would be most persuasive. Jewish writings in general (immediately before, during and immediately after) were much less historically oriented, yet historians can glean nuggets of genuine historical facts in such works. The Gospels were an anomaly in that they are so very historical. But being Jewish works, shouldn't we expect to find theological and historical tweeking (so to speak) in the Gospels as we find in other Jewish works of the time?

      I understand your concerns. I really do. Part of me wishes the Gospels were written in a way that conforms perfectly to Geisler's type of inerrancy. However, the actual details of Scripture make that impossible. While you're not arguing for inerrancy (much less Geisler's type), your arguments (if applied consistently) would IMHO seem to make Scripture actually contradictory, errant and apparently uninspired. I'd rather have an attenuated doctrine of Inerrancy than take a position that in practice/application precludes the possibility of inerrancy and inspiration altogether for the purpose of satisfying our modern historical criteria.

      Pressing the details of Scripture too much to get more out of them than the authors intended can lead to very strained exegesis (read eisegesis). See for example the following Appendices of E.W. Bullinger's The Companion Bible.

      The Denials of Peter
      https://levendwater.org/companion/append160.html

      The Two Annointings
      https://levendwater.org/companion/append158.html

      The Double Miracles of MATT. 9:18; MARK 5:22; AND LUKE 8:41.
      https://levendwater.org/companion/append138.html

      This is all I'll say for now since I can't add anything more to advance the conversation and you argue for your position much better than I do mine.

      Delete
    8. You mentioned Tim's proposal:

      “My daughter is on the point of death. By this time, I'm sure she is dead! But come and lay your hand on her and she will live.”

      However, it seems to me that in most cases, it's very difficult to predict when a person will actually die. Very sick people can linger much longer than we sometimes expect.

      I accept Tim's proposal as a plausible harmonization. However, it seems to me that if you applied the same kind of strict criticism you used against Licona's appeal to transferral and displacement, we'd be prohibited from accepting Tim's proposal. Though, I understand that you don't see it that way and that you don't believe you're being inconsistent.

      Delete
    9. No, I'm talking about deliberateness. I've repeated this approximately a hundred times now (hyperbole), and I don't quite understand what is unclear about it. I made a distinction in the area of compression as well. Is there something I can make clearer? There is a huge difference between simply not mentioning something and _deliberately brushing it out_. Deliberately making it sound like it wasn't there. "Having" it not be there. I've talked about this at length in comments, in the main post, everywhere. I've even distinguished "benign" from "problematic" compression along precisely these lines. What is unclear about this.

      There is a great gulf fixed between Matthew's, for example, leaving out the coming of the servants for the sake of brevity and Matthew's _brushing out_ the servants, _attempting_ to write as though Jairus said something he _did not_ say. There is a great gulf fixed between Matthew's simply _leaving out_ the disciples' seeing the fig tree withered up the next day and Matthew's _deliberately trying to make it sound_ like the fig tree withered at a time when he knew and believed that it didn't wither.

      " But being Jewish works, shouldn't we expect to find theological and historical tweeking (so to speak) in the Gospels as we find in other Jewish works of the time?"

      No. (And once again, I'd have to be convinced that these "other Jewish works" were doing _deliberate_ tweaking. I think there is going to be often no sign of any difference between such and merely getting it wrong or learning new information, etc. And deliberate tweaking is the more complex hypothesis.)

      And on theological agendas, please see one of my linked comment about how a theological agenda is not really served in Christianity by false facts. The symbolism of Jesus's dying during Passover arises from his actually having died during Passover, not from a faked "fact" that says that he died on the day when the Passover lamb was killed when that really didn't happen.

      I think the evangelists understood this very well.

      Delete
    10. It seems to me that what the text says is more important than the intent of the writer. Since the consistency of Scripture ought to take priority and since we know that the authors were (in themselves) fallible. Though, of course, the intent of the author helps us understand the text. Say hypothetically that unconditional election is true. It's still possible that one or more of the authors of Scripture personally believed in conditional election. This would be fine so long as what they wrote and what was eventually included into the canon doesn't explicitly contradict unconditional election (i.e. theological truths as God sees them). Here's another example. Say hypothetically that one or more of the authors of the Hebrew canon personally believed in a Unitarian conception of God. That would be fine so long as what they wrote and what was eventually included into the canon doesn't explicitly contradict Trinitarianism.

      That's not to say that the intentions of the authors doesn't matter. They do, but not as much as what the text actually says (in order to preserve the doctrines of inspiration, infallibility, inerrancy etc.). So long as the authors didn't intend on deceiving their readers (knowing that their readers understood the literary conventions of the day), then their intentions weren't malicious.

      It's incumbent on Licona to prove 1. that such literary devices were popularly used by writers and understood by readers, 2. show abductively how the best explanation of the Scriptural data is that they used such devices. Conversely, it seems to me (rightly or wrongly) that it's incumbent on you to show that such devices 1. could/may not have been used by the Gospel writers, 2. show how the best explanation of the Scriptural data is that they weren't.

      I don't see any good reason why they may/ought not to have used such devices. Other than the anachronistic desire to satisfy our modern historical requirements. My concern is to safeguard the integrity, authority, inspiration and inerrancy of Scriptural revelation. Your concern is to safeguard the historicity of the Gospels. I think you do so with expectations that are not themselves derived from the Scriptures. It would be ironic if in your attempt to preserve the historicity of the Gospels you did so in an ahistorical anachronistic way.

      Delete
    11. We have to remind ourselves that the Gospels weren't written to us even though they were (also) written for us. They were written to 1st century readers with 1st century concerns and worldview. The emphasis on precise details and chronology are modern Western standards. Not necessarily 1st century Jewish or Roman standards.

      It's true that some of the early church fathers had some of our expectations and tried to resolve some of the apparent discrepancies in the Gospels, but to my knowledge those who did lived in different times, places and cultures. Usually sometime past the latter end of the 2nd century (or later).

      Delete
    12. All of the evidence of undesigned coincidences, unexplained allusions, and unnecessary details, as well as the many, many incidental external confirmations of the historical accuracy of the gospels are against Licona's approach. As a sheerly empirical matter, all of our data goes to show that the gospel authors were attempting to be accurate in an ordinary sense of accurate and that there is no reason whatsoever to accept the idea of some radical discontinuity between their idea of truth and accuracy and our own.

      Indeed, one of those alleged "Jewish tweaks" that I suppose you were talking about, above, in Josephus, is (if it was a tweak, which was a conjecture of an historian) well explained by an all-too-modern category--a politician who wanted to change his past record. Not some "we moderns just don't understand the ancients" literary trope. At. all. That's if the conjecture is even true that Josephus lied. It would just be a lie about his record. No fancy literary trope that we just don't get because we're hung-up moderns.

      For the rest, Licona's deliberate change hypotheses violate Ockham's razor six ways from zero. They are wildly complicated in virtue of their very contrived, literary, deliberate nature, and his "argument" for them consists mostly in bare assertion about Plutarch followed by bare assertion that this is what the gospel writer was doing. While meanwhile he simply ignores numerous alternative, simpler hypotheses. That scarcely even _counts_ as an argument, and the idea that it shifts the burden of proof is pretty ludicrous.

      Delete
    13. Let me also add that you are throwing around the term "anachronistic" because you are speaking as though Licona's largely unargued assertions have created a case for a radically different notion of truthfulness in witness testimony on the part of the gospel writers. I suggest to you that he has done nothing of the kind and that there is not in fact the slightest reason to take my concerns to be anachronistic at all.

      I think, A.P., that you should be quite disturbed upon reading your above comments to realize that what you have hypothesized (when it is all put together) is that the Holy Spirit might have _deliberately_ inspired (not just *permitted*, but actually deliberately guided and inspired) the Apostle John to state that an event took place on a day when, in fact, it didn't take place. That's incredibly problematic, to put it mildly. I don't usually throw around the word "blasphemous," but I'll just say that it should bother you upon reflection to think that this is what you are contemplating here seriously. And to call that affirming the integrity of Scripture, I find fairly mind-boggling.

      Delete
    14. ...inspired...John to state that an event took place on a day when, in fact, it didn't take place.

      Licona's general thesis might have some merit even if his application to this issue of the day of Christ's anointing may be wrong. I'm not fully convinced that there couldn't have been two anointings. It's not uncommon for people to do the same things others have done in hopes of receiving a similar blessing. For example, the story of the woman with the issue of blood touching the fringe of Jesus' garment in Matt. 9:20ff. later inspired many others to want to touch Jesus' garment in Matt. 14:36. In Matt. 9:27ff. two blind men cry out to Jesus for mercy calling Him son of David. Later in Matt. 20:29 two more blind men do the same thing by pleading for mercy and acknowledging their recognition of Jesus' messiahship by also calling Him son of David. Apparently, word had gotten to them that two blind men were healed in such a manner and they attempted to mimic the circumstances to get healed as well. When it comes to Christ's anointing, in Mark 14 and Matt. 26 the event took place in the house of Simon the leper. Presumably, this is the same event recorded in Luke 7:36 since it occurred in a house of a Pharisee also named Simon. Though, this might be the first of 3 different anointings that occurred earlier in Christ's ministry. I don't think that's impossible because Simon was such a common name at the time (two Apostles having the name). While in John 12 the event apparently took place in the home of Lazarus.

      I think, A.P., that you should be quite disturbed upon reading your above comments to realize that what you have hypothesized (when it is all put together) is that the Holy Spirit might have _deliberately_ inspired...

      It seems to me that if God could use stylized and less than literal or precise language to describe history as in the case of the first chapters of Genesis, I don't see why God couldn't do something similar with the types of literary devices that Licona describes.

      Delete
  4. If anyone is interested, we're discussing Licona's lecture HERE:
    https://youtu.be/xtemSTrkogE

    BTW, if people don't know, all youtube videos can now be viewed at different speeds. They can be sped up to 1.25, 1.50 or 2 times their normal speed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Steve has addressed the Geisler vs. Licona controversy and similar topics in times past. Some of those blogposts include the following. Though, there are many more:

      The resurrected saints (9/12/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/resurrected-saints.html

      Hubner on Licona (9/12/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/hubner-on-licona.html

      Geisler responds to Licona (9/13/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/geisler-responds-to-licona.html

      Something Close to Biblicism (9/13/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/something-close-to-biblicism.html

      Geisler adversus Geisler (9/14/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/geisler-adversus-geisler.html

      Licona responds to Mohler (9/15/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/licona-responds-to-mohler.html

      Father Church (9/15/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/father-church.html

      Just in the Nick of time (9/15/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/just-in-nick-of-time.html

      Lumpkins disposable morals (9/16/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/lumpkins-disposable-morals.html

      Odds and Enns (9/16/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/odds-and-enns.html

      Early Christian And Non-Christian Interpretations Of The Matthew 27 Phenomena (9/16/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/early-christian-and-non-christian.html

      The Doctrine of Inspiration and the World of the Ancient Near East (9/16/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/doctrine-of-inspiration-and-world-of.html

      "An Inconsistent Argument Against Inerrancy" (9/16/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/inconsistent-argument-against-inerrancy.html

      Geisler's selective prooftexting (9/18/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/geislers-selective-prooftexting.html

      The day hope died (9/18/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/day-hope-died.html

      The blessed hope (9/19/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/blessed-hope.html

      Penultimate thoughts on the Licona controversy (9/19/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/penultimate-thoughts-on-licona.html

      Inerrancy and hermeneutics (9/19/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/inerrancy-and-hermeneutics.html

      When the Saints Go Marching In (11/19/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/11/when-saints-go-marching-in.html

      Beckwith misstates Catholic theology (12/3/11)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/12/beckwith-misstates-catholic-theology.html

      Roundtable Discussion Of Matthew 27:52-53 (7/31/12)
      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/07/roundtable-discussion-of-matthew-2752-53.html

      Delete
  5. Steve, I wanted to add something about the cleansing of the temple. I was reminded of this point by Esteemed Husband. I had forgotten it. John's account has the bit of Jewish dialogue that says that the temple has taken forty-six years to build. This is actually one of the more interesting bits of external confirmation (though there are so many) of the gospels, because one can put it together with Luke's 15th year of the reign of Tiberias, and it falls at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. This is another indication that John intended this to be at the beginning, not to be an account of the cleansing in Passion week.

    If one takes the tack that Licona is open to that John deliberately changed this, then presumably John had to _make up_ that bit of dialogue _in order_ to make it appear to have happened at the beginning. This has quite large apologetic implications, because it treats as just invented rather than reported the very historical indications and tie-downs between the gospels and external information that are of such great apologetic value.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...one can put it together with Luke's 15th year of the reign of Tiberias, and it falls at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. This is another indication that John intended this to be at the beginning, not to be an account of the cleansing in Passion week.

      That would make sense if there were two cleansings which Jesus performed to mark the beginning and ending of His public ministry on earth. His ministry comes full circle. By His imminent death He would finally purify the people/temple of God for pure worship.

      Delete
    2. Yes, I think there definitely were two. I've never understood why anyone thinks it implausible. As I said on another thread, how many times do protesters do their thing in our own time? A lot more than twice. Jesus was engaging in a symbolic act in opposition to the cheating, etc., in the temple. And of course the merchants would have just thought he was some crazy guy and would have started right back up again after they were sure he wasn't around anymore.

      Delete
  6. Lydia I also believe there were two anointings in John 12:1-10 and Mark 14:39. If you look at Luke 7:46 where Jesus points out that he was unwelcome and did not even receive any oil for his head. It presumes when Jesus the prophet was received in your home, anointing his head would probably be very common, especially by someone he healed.

    Some significant differences are:
    Poured on head vs anointed feet
    6 days vs 2 days (both books are mostly chronological excluding Matt)
    Memorial to woman vs no memorial
    300 denarii vs "More Than" 300 denarii
    Some disciples indignant vs Judas indignant

    -why is Martha serving dinner at the house of Simon leper, lowers likelihood
    -only stated to be a pound In John
    -Mark says the box was broken

    Symbolism
    -3 fold anointing of office
    -David anointed 3 times as the type of Jesus
    -anoint feet of servant and anoint head of a king


    For a sample of repetitive of statements by Jesus/disciples:
    O you of little faith Matt 8:26,14:31,16:8
    Cut off sinning hand Matt 5:29-30,18:8
    Disciples Dispute who is greatest Luke 9:46-48,22:24
    Son of Man come in glory Matt 16:27,25:31

    It seems to point to multiple anointing as the most likely explanation. Luke 7:46 would seem to indicate that it would be strange if you are not anointing Jesus.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Peter, I too think Jesus was anointed twice, but neither Licona nor I am bringing the Luke passage in. I think the Luke passage records a different anointing at a completely different time in his ministry. But if you look at the anointing during passion week in Mark and Matthew, it _strongly_ appears to be the same as the one in John 12. One would have to postulate _three_ anointings to account for the differences of all the others from Luke and the differences between Mark and John (by way of postulating duplicate events). I definitely _don't_ think Mark and Luke are recounting the same anointing. So the problem of the differences between Mark and John remains.

    I think Jesus was anointed twice but not three times. I think the ones in Matthew, Mark, and John are the same and the one in Luke is different.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Peter, I too think Jesus was anointed twice, but neither Licona nor I am bringing the Luke passage in. I think the Luke passage records a different anointing at a completely different time in his ministry. But if you look at the anointing during passion week in Mark and Matthew, it _strongly_ appears to be the same as the one in John 12. One would have to postulate _three_ anointings to account for the differences of all the others from Luke and the differences between Mark and John (by way of postulating duplicate events). I definitely _don't_ think Mark and Luke are recounting the same anointing. So the problem of the differences between Mark and John remains.

    I think Jesus was anointed twice but not three times. I think the ones in Matthew, Mark, and John are the same and the one in Luke is different.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've not read all the links you provide earlier to AP, so you may have already addressed the topic at length in those linked posts - but in summary what do you propose given your conclusion about the divergent Matthew/Mark/John anointing accounts?

      Delete
    2. Lydia the Luke passage is very clearly a different time and place with very different particulars. I only referenced it because Luke 7:44-46 shows that Jesus understood anointings for the head to be a rather universal custom. Which reinforces a second passion week anointing, when Jesus visits your house he is the well known healer prophet, anointing him is quite expected.

      I referenced above the many differences between John and Mark/Matt. The rather few points of similarity are rather easily explained. What makes you think that these very probably are not different events?

      Delete
  9. CR, this is one of the only occasions (far fewer than the number of instances where Licona in my opinion greatly exaggerates the difficulty of harmonization) where I lean towards a minor error.

    My own suspicion (which I wouldn't put at a high probability--perhaps just over 50%) is that Matthew and Mark's chronology on the passion week anointing is correct and that John misremembered the day, perhaps because on some evenings in Bethany dinner was served at the house of Mary and Martha and sometimes at someone else's house. For example, suppose that Simon the Leper had no wife and Martha (consistent with her personality) took over the role of hostess at his house for the evening. John, writing several decades later, may simply have remembered the following occurrences (including the anointing) as taking place instead at a meal at the home of Mary and Martha (though I note that John does not _say_ that the meal took place at the home of Mary and Martha explicitly) on the first evening when they arrived.

    Given that Jesus was going back and forth every single evening (Saturday through Wednesday) to Bethany and sleeping there, this is (in human terms) an extremely plausible and trivial error. I also consider it far less theologically problematic than to think that John deliberately said something false, which (to be frank) I would regard as a lie. A lie is a much bigger deal even as far as a person's future reliability than a trivial memory slip. And such a lie would be, in my opinion, entirely inconsistent with the way that John represents himself ("he who saw it bear record, and his record is true," etc.) as a witness of these things.

    Peter, to my mind the strongest argument against two passion week anointings is the similarity of dialogue. It seems to me that if the disciples had already "tried" the business of saying that the expensive ointment should be sold and given to the poor, they wouldn't have gone through exactly the same dialogue with Jesus again just a very few days later. And it seems unlikely that Jesus would have answered them with exactly the same words about having the poor always with them and doing it for his burial. It seems likely to me that he would have expressed some impatience with their (or Judas's) making exactly the same dumb remark in exactly the same words about selling the expensive ointment and giving the money to the poor. Moreover, John is particularly disdainful of Judas's remark as hypocritical. If it was the known thief Judas who spoke up on Saturday (and it seems the disciples themselves must have already strongly suspected Judas of theft by the end of Jesus' ministry, not that they decided that only later), why would anyone else have said exactly the same thing three or four days later? And Judas himself would already have known what answer he would give, and it would have made him look bad to say the same thing. The best one could try would be to argue that some third person who was not present at the dinner on Saturday made the same remark about selling and giving to the poor on Tuesday or Wednesday, but again, the reportage of the dialogue in such similar terms, including Jesus' answer, strikes me as implausible if it was a different occasion.

    I would also add that Bethany appears to have been a tiny hamlet, which makes multiple points spring to mind on both sides: E.g. Certainly word would have gotten around of what Mary had done on Saturday, which might make it more likely that some other woman in the same town would have done the same thing on Wednesday. On the other hand, is it likely that two women in the same tiny town would have such an expensive box of ointment sitting around? Also, in such a small town the possibility that a woman from one house would help out at a dinner at another house just around the corner doesn't seem at all improbable.

    So I'm not _utterly_ closed to there being three anointings, but it doesn't seem to me the best explanation.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lydia based on readings and conversations I have received:


    Answers to the critical arguments.
    - (1) the similarity of dialogue: It should not be overlooked that Jesus used the same examples and often the same formulations on specific problems. This is striking in the Gospels, also in the occasions of the two anointings.
    For example in Matt 12:39 and 16:4 similar objections are raised and the same response is evoked.
    - (2) they wouldn't have gone through exactly the same dialogue: The first time (John) it was only Judas who openly blamed Mary and the waste of money. Later on (2nd) anointment it were others who spoke to each other blaming the woman (Mark 14:4, Matthew 26:10 Jesus, aware of this). Why did they so for the second time? They had not understood Jesus word about his burial as they did not understand any word of him about his suffering at hand.
    - (3) answered them with exactly the same words: this is a repetition of argumentation, see earlier “the similarity of dialogue” (1, 2).
    - (4) he would have expressed some impatience with their making exactly the same dumb remark: No, Jesus was very calm, because He understood immediately that the seed of dissension sown by Judas had done its work. With his cool and authoritative reaction Jesus showed his superiority and using the same words as earlier he made clear that he stuck to his point.
    - (5) the known thief Judas: John’s remark about Judas has no influence on the occurrence itself and is no argument to maintain that only one anointing happened.
    - (6) why would anyone else have said exactly the same thing three or four days later? Right, except if another similar occurrence did happen. In fact this is a second repetition of argumentation, see earlier “the similarity of dialogue” (1, 2, 3).
    The repetition of his response is common especially if the similar occurence did happen.
    - (7) is it likely that two women in the same tiny town would have such an expensive box of ointment? It is forgotten that there were millions of people in and around Jerusalem in the neighboring villages during the Passover. Josephus tells us that there were 3 million people there for the passive. There were even tent camps (Flavius Josephus). It is not unlikely to suppose that women on their way to Jerusalem took with them expensive oil instead of money to sell it in the city. So the minimalizing aspect of “the woman just around the corner” doesn’t fit.
    In addition this town is less then 2 miles outside the city and it was known that Jesus was retiring there each night (Mark 11:11-12)

    Therefore with the commonality of anointings (Luke 7:44-46) the immensity of people there for Passover (Over 3 million) and the difference of details (noted above) this seems to most strongly point to different events.

    ReplyDelete