Christianity was born of the travail of the days of John. The Baptist gave it two talismans with which to bind souls:

1. the advent of the Heavenly Man in a universal cataclysm,
2. and the rite of baptism which allowed the initiates to await, without apprehension, the Coming of the Judge.

(p. 31, my formatting)

At first the teaching spread like wildfire but without John’s name attached to it as its IP owner.

Before long the teaching became enriched with various kinds of additions. First among these additions were new names for the Heavenly Man: Lord, Christ, Jesus.

Lord as a title was derived from Psalm 110:1

The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit thou at my right hand,
Until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

To whom could this have been addressed? Surely not to the Messiah, the Son of David, waited for by the Pharisees. David would not have called his son “my Lord.” It must have been to the Son of Man who, according to the Revelation of Enoch, was placed on the throne of his glory by God Himself. (p. 31)

Since David as an inspired prophet makes it clear that the Son of Man is enthroned at the right hand of God and calls him Lord. So believers could also call the Son of Man their Lord.

(Note that the title “Son of Man” was used as a Greek expression, too. Think of Christianity as moulded very largely by Greek speakers.)

Christ, Christos, “is a somewhat barbarous translation of the Hebrew word which means consecrated by unction, Messiah.”

Now the Son of Man, our Lord, was consecrated by unction. He it is, as Enoch explains, who says in Isaiah: –

The Spirit of the Lord Jahweh is upon me,
For Jahweh has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring good tidings to the unfortunate,
To bind up the broken-hearted . . . (Isa. lxi, I, quoted by Enoch)

The Heavenly Man is the Anointed, the Christ, to fulfil for the elect a beneficent and gentle office. Thus the title “Son of Man” indicates the judge and avenger, while that of “Christ” recalls his kindlier functions. (p. 32)

This name, Christ, was the one these devotees preferred and from which they derived their label, christiani, the people of Christ; “for his name is ever on their lips”. This title became a proper name that had tender and mystical meaning for them, while for the Pharisees the Christ or Messiah “is merely a man, a son of David, a warlike and vain king, whose kingdom is of this world only.” (p. 32)

The name Jesus

This Christ had a name of his own that was revealed to Enoch at the moment God commissioned him for his mission, but Enoch kept the name secret.

But a careful scrutiny of the scriptures which are obscure mysteries of God will not fail to bring it to light.

Nor did it fail. A passage in the Book of Exodus was noted where God by the mouth of Moses said to the people (Septuagint xxiii. 20-21): –

Lo, I send my Messenger to thee
To guard thee on the road,
To lead thee to the country I have made ready for thee;

Take heed of him, hearken to his word,
Do not gainsay him.
He will not desert thee.
For My Name is upon him.

So who is this Messenger who is to lead God’s people to their promised destiny?

It is Joshua, first called Oshea (Numb. xiii. 17, Septuagint xii. 16, A.V.). Moses called Oshea Joshua, which means Jahweh Saves. Jahweh means when he says of Oshea “My Name is upon him” that one of the names of God is Jahweh Saves. This name was not revealed to Abraham not to Jacob. At the right time it was understood (for this mystic reasoning see Justin, Dialogue lxxv. 1-2). . . . [Jesus] is the personal name of the Son of Man, of the Christ, our Lord. It is the name “which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth” (Phil. ii. 9-10). (pp. 32-33)

(If one thinks that the name Jesus would have been too common a name for such an exalted status I recommend an article by classicist Professor John Moles: Name above all names and Jesus the healer.)

The name Jesus was the talisman of the Christians. Those who knew the name had great powers. In the name of Jesus they could drive out demons, trample underfoot serpents and scorpions, heal the sick, etc. Even in the New Testament — and the Talmud — we read of unbelievers attempting to use the name of Jesus to perform miracles (Mark 9:38-40; Acts 19:13-17).

It is an extraordinary thing that the name Jesus should have been accepted in its Greek form and is never referred to in the Hebrew form. This shows the large part played in the development of the Church by Greek-speaking Jews. The Lord Jesus Christ was the full title given to the Son of Man. These three names, together or singly, served to invoke him. (p. 33)

The followers of the Book of Enoch identified the Light of the World and Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah with this Heavenly Man. One set of verses in Isaiah became the “Christian Charter” — Isaiah 53:3-12.

These fine verses became the Christian Charter. It was accepted that the Servant of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, had borne the burden of our sins and had suffered a death in the manner of an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of all. The revelation of Isaiah completed that of Enoch. Before being exalted to heaven and named with solemnity, the Heavenly Man, the Servant of God, had suffered death (see the famous passage in Phil. ii. 6-11, in which the same order appears — death on the cross, the giving of the name). (p. 35)

Here is the passage as it appears in The Creation of Christ (Couchoud’s book). Couchoud says that the text has been mutilated and he follows the translations of A. Condamin and A. Loisy:

Couchoud thought that John the Baptist epitomized and popularized the Jewish hopes for a coming Judge from Heaven — as shown in my previous post in this series (the entire series is archived here).

Christianity was born of the travail of the days of John. The Baptist gave it two talismans with which to bind souls:

1. the advent of the Heavenly Man in a universal cataclysm,
2. and the rite of baptism which allowed the initiates to await, without apprehension, the Coming of the Judge.

(p. 31, my formatting)

At first the teaching spread like wildfire but without John’s name attached to it as its IP owner.

Before long the teaching became enriched with various kinds of additions. First among these additions were new names for the Heavenly Man: Lord, Christ, Jesus.

Lord as a title was derived from Psalm 110:1

The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit thou at my right hand,
Until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

To whom could this have been addressed? Surely not to the Messiah, the Son of David, waited for by the Pharisees. David would not have called his son “my Lord.” It must have been to the Son of Man who, according to the Revelation of Enoch, was placed on the throne of his glory by God Himself. (p. 31)

Since David as an inspired prophet makes it clear that the Son of Man is enthroned at the right hand of God and calls him Lord. So believers could also call the Son of Man their Lord.

(Note that the title “Son of Man” was used as a Greek expression, too. Think of Christianity as moulded very largely by Greek speakers.)

Christ, Christos, “is a somewhat barbarous translation of the Hebrew word which means consecrated by unction, Messiah.”

Now the Son of Man, our Lord, was consecrated by unction. He it is, as Enoch explains, who says in Isaiah: –

The Spirit of the Lord Jahweh is upon me,
For Jahweh has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring good tidings to the unfortunate,
To bind up the broken-hearted . . . (Isa. lxi, I, quoted by Enoch)

The Heavenly Man is the Anointed, the Christ, to fulfil for the elect a beneficent and gentle office. Thus the title “Son of Man” indicates the judge and avenger, while that of “Christ” recalls his kindlier functions. (p. 32)

This name, Christ, was the one these devotees preferred and from which they derived their label, christiani, the people of Christ; “for his name is ever on their lips”. This title became a proper name that had tender and mystical meaning for them, while for the Pharisees the Christ or Messiah “is merely a man, a son of David, a warlike and vain king, whose kingdom is of this world only.” (p. 32)

The name Jesus

This Christ had a name of his own that was revealed to Enoch at the moment God commissioned him for his mission, but Enoch kept the name secret.

But a careful scrutiny of the scriptures which are obscure mysteries of God will not fail to bring it to light.

Nor did it fail. A passage in the Book of Exodus was noted where God by the mouth of Moses said to the people (Septuagint xxiii. 20-21): –

Lo, I send my Messenger to thee
To guard thee on the road,
To lead thee to the country I have made ready for thee;

Take heed of him, hearken to his word,
Do not gainsay him.
He will not desert thee.
For My Name is upon him.

So who is this Messenger who is to lead God’s people to their promised destiny?

It is Joshua, first called Oshea (Numb. xiii. 17, Septuagint xii. 16, A.V.). Moses called Oshea Joshua, which means Jahweh Saves. Jahweh means when he says of Oshea “My Name is upon him” that one of the names of God is Jahweh Saves. This name was not revealed to Abraham not to Jacob. At the right time it was understood (for this mystic reasoning see Justin, Dialogue lxxv. 1-2). . . . [Jesus] is the personal name of the Son of Man, of the Christ, our Lord. It is the name “which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth” (Phil. ii. 9-10). (pp. 32-33)

(If one thinks that the name Jesus would have been too common a name for such an exalted status I recommend an article by classicist Professor John Moles: Name above all names and Jesus the healer.)

The name Jesus was the talisman of the Christians. Those who knew the name had great powers. In the name of Jesus they could drive out demons, trample underfoot serpents and scorpions, heal the sick, etc. Even in the New Testament — and the Talmud — we read of unbelievers attempting to use the name of Jesus to perform miracles (Mark 9:38-40; Acts 19:13-17).

It is an extraordinary thing that the name Jesus should have been accepted in its Greek form and is never referred to in the Hebrew form. This shows the large part played in the development of the Church by Greek-speaking Jews. The Lord Jesus Christ was the full title given to the Son of Man. These three names, together or singly, served to invoke him. (p. 33)

The followers of the Book of Enoch identified the Light of the World and Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah with this Heavenly Man. One set of verses in Isaiah became the “Christian Charter” — Isaiah 53:3-12.

These fine verses became the Christian Charter. It was accepted that the Servant of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, had borne the burden of our sins and had suffered a death in the manner of an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of all. The revelation of Isaiah completed that of Enoch. Before being exalted to heaven and named with solemnity, the Heavenly Man, the Servant of God, had suffered death (see the famous passage in Phil. ii. 6-11, in which the same order appears — death on the cross, the giving of the name). (p. 35)

Here is the passage as it appears in The Creation of Christ (Couchoud’s book). Couchoud says that the text has been mutilated and he follows the translations of A. Condamin and A. Loisy:

Despised, and rejected of men,
Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief,
Before whom we veil our faces,
Despised and accounted as nought.

Surely our ills he bore them
And our griefs he carried their burden;
But we thought him stricken,
Smitten of god and afflicted.

He was wounded for our sins,
And bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement which saves us is fallen upon him
And with his stripes we are healed.

We all like sheep have gone astray,
We have turned every one his own way.
Jahweh has laid on him
The iniquity of us all.

Ill-treated, he was resigned,
He opened not his mouth,
Like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter,
Like a sheep dumb in the hands of the shearer.

He was taken from us by a judgment of oppression.
He was cut off from the land of the living
And for our sins he was put to death.

His tomb has been placed among the impious,
He is dead among the wicked.
But there was no wrong in his deeds,
No lie in his mouth.
Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him.

. . . My Servant shall justify many;
Their sins are his burden.
Therefore I will give a portion of many men;
He shall receive multitudes as his share of booty.

Because he has poured out his life,
He was numbered with the evil-doers,
Since he bore the sins of many
And made intercession for the transgressors.  (p. 34)

In what land was he slain? By whom? At what time? In what manner? The text was profoundly mysterious. Certain phrases struck the imagination, and suggested the Lord Jesus, in guise of a Heavenly Paschal Lamb, sacrificed before the creation of the world (vide Rev. v. 6; xiii. 8; and cf. I Cor. v. 7, “for even Christ our passover is sacrificed”). Then, again, his tomb among the impious and his death among the wicked suggests other mystic visions. St Paul and John of Patmos will paint very different pictures of the redeeming death. But all were agreed that he died for our sins and that he was resurrected on the third day according to the prophecy in Hosea (vi. 2): –

After two days he will revive us;
In the third day will he raise us up. (p. 35)

Baptism takes on a new meaning. Henceforth it cleansed believers by the power of the Divine Death.

This Elect One (Isa. 42:1) was, through the Psalm 2:7 that said, The Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee, became the Son of God.

This Sonship was through a begettal that took place in the Resurrection.

This is no day of human measuring, no period of earthly time, but is of the mystic spiritual dimension. (p. 35)

The Visions

God himself had therefore confirmed the belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God. The faithful were exalted towards the marvellous being on whom their salvation depended. Expectation, apprehension, adoration, were raised to ecstasy. The Lord Jesus Christ made his apparition. To one man first — great was his glory and the authority it gave him! Then to several at a time. These apparitions, duly testified, became irrefutable proofs and an unshakable foundation of the faith. (pp. 35-36)

Paul gives us our earliest evidence of these individuals and groups who received these visions in 1 Cor. 15:3-8, and Couchoud quotes here the Marcionite text. (The link is to the AV text which we are more familiar with):

For I delivered unto you first of all
How that Christ died for our sins,
And that he was buried
And rose again on the third day.

And that he was seen by Cephas,
Then of the twelve;
After that he was seen of more than five hundred brethren at once,
Of whom many remain until this present,
But some are fallen asleep.

Then he was seen by James,
After that of all the apostles;
To the last of all as to an abortion
He appeared to me also.

The “pillars” at the Jerusalem Church must have owed their positions to the visions they had had, although at the time of writing the above John had not yet had his vision. When it did come to him he wrote it down in what is now our Book of Revelation. To Couchoud it is this book that “gives us the best picture of the beliefs of the early Christian.” Nothing is known of the visions of Peter and James. Presumably the visions of James were of such an intimate nature that he was titled the “brother of the Lord” — just as Abraham was the “friend of God”. His real brothers may have shared this title with him. (From Jerome — De Viris illustr., 2, — we read of the Gospel to the Hebrews narrating how Jesus called James his brother.) (Noted also is that the phrase in Galatians 1:19, “brother of the Lord”, is missing in the Marcionite text. In 1 Corinthians 9:5 we read of “brothers of the Lord” as if they are a special spiritual group like “the apostles”.)

The five hundred brethren, Couchoud suggests, were visionaries who followed Peter/Kephas and the Twelve, “and successfully experienced the extraordinary feat of a grand collective vision of the Lord Jesus.”

This indicates in what hectic effervescence of mind the faith was engendered. (p. 37)

Schism from John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ

So Christians parted from the teachings of John the Baptist. For them they were different in their knowledge of the names of God, the death of Christ and the visions of Christ.

Followers of John the Baptist meanwhile continued with prayers and fastings and gaining new converts to baptism. They spread beyond Palestine and one of them, Apollos, became a great teacher in Alexandria (Acts 17:25).

In this sense John was the forerunner of Christ. In other places the Johannists were opposed to the Christians. At Ephesus they were strong enough to war with the author of the fourth gospel. (p. 38)

Christianity’s expansion meant the retreat of the Baptist faith. Couchoud thinks John’s religion became permeated with Gnosticism and ‘survives’ in some form as Mandaeism today.

Christianity, meanwhile, was no longer bound to the words of a dead prophet at John was, but its adherents became prophets themselves. They preached throughout the world the “good news” of the imminent coming of Christ Jesus.

This completes the section of Couchoud’s book up to the period of 40 c.e. To be continued, etc.

In the next chapter we read the view that John the Baptist was a key figure in sparking the movement that became Christianity. Couchoud takes the date for John from Josephus — that is, towards the end of Pilate’s office in 36 c.e. Couchoud believes strongly that there was a fervent expectation among the Jews for a divine messianic deliverer. John was part of this popular hope when he came preaching the coming of the heavenly Messiah figure to judge the world. John’s message was thus fed by the tradition we read of in the above works (Daniel, Enoch, Moses).

Zechariah 13:3 had said there would be no more prophets but John was not afraid to don the prophet’s mantle and take their place. John did not create an image of the Heavenly Man but delivered threats against those who this figure would judge:

O generation of vipers,  [ Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 59, 1 -- the viper was believed to be the only snake that could bury itself in the earth - metaphor of those who think they can hide from the wrath of God ]
Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance,

Do not to say to yourselves,
We have Abraham to our father:
I say unto you that God is able
Of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.  [ "stones" = Aramaic abenayya; children = Aramaic benayya ]

Already the axe
Is laid unto the root of the trees:
Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit
Is hewn down and cast into the fire.

He that cometh after me
Is mightier than I,
Whose shoes I am not worthy to untie:
I baptize you with water,
He will baptize you with wind and fire: [ the context of the next verse explains the meaning of wind and fire; the word "holy" before wind (same word as spirit) was a Christian addition and foreign to the context ]

His fan is in his hand,
To purge thoroughly his floor,
And gather his wheat into his garner;
But he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

The urgency of this message (taken from Luke and Matthew) leaves no room for delay. The judgement from this heavenly Son of Man figure from the Book of Enoch is about to befall.

Baptism

With such heightened expectations there was nothing to live for except that expectation. And as for that rite of baptism:

What an inspiration it was to invent a rite which should become the most solemn, the most widely spread of all rites, which should be a bond between multitudes of believers, binding them into a single religious community!

“I baptize you with water, he will baptize you with wind and fire.” This plunging into water is called by its Greek name, baptism. Its meaning is profound and its might great. It is in antithesis to the passing through fire which he “who is mightier than I” shall give to those who reject him. Baptism in water will preserve the faithful from the baptism of fire. The soul must be purified by repentance first. Then shall the baptism in water give protection from the Wind and the Fire of the Great Winnower. (p. 28)

That’s an interesting twist on a rite I had always associated with a symbolic death — a burial as per Noah’s flood or the Egyptian armies chasing Moses’s Israelites. But I do like the “wind and fire” interpretation — makes more sense than the Gospel having a baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire.

The Jordan River is the setting. Ezekiel 47:1-12 had foretold a stream would flow down from the Temple cleansing the waters of the Dead Sea so they would become the scene of fish and fisher nets.

Here the prophecy is realized. The invisible stream has sprung forth. The lands once burned with fire from heaven for their sins are now the first purified. A new life is beginning. The nets of the Fisher are spread forth. (pp. 28-29)

There is so much symbolism here that I can’t help but suspect literary artifice. But I am giving this space to Couchoud’s views so let’s continue.

Nazoreans

The believer comes down to the Baptizer and is immersed, thus entering into the Kingdom, now saved from the whirlwind of fire to come. Through this rite — to be preserved among the early Church and the Mandaeans — the believer is separated from the rest of mankind and bonds with a new and saved community.

These believers separated themselves into small communities, fasted often (Luke 5:33) and prayed often as John taught them (Luke 11:1).

They were distinguished from ordinary Jews by the name of Nazorean. (p. 29)

Couchoud turns to Lidsbarski, Ginza (1925) to inform us that the designation of Nazoreans was retained by the early Christians (Acts 24:5), by Oriental Christians and by the Mandaeans — and probably means “those who observe”.

Elements of a new religion

If a religion consists essentially of a common belief in a divine being and a common rite that puts believers in communion with their god,

then the baptism of John associated with the myth of the Celestial Man offered the elements of a new religion.

So when the author of Acts (Acts 27:25  — Apollos knew only the baptism of John) speaks of the Baptism of John he effectively means the religion of John.

These are the foundations on which Christianity is to rise. (p. 29)

Though Judaism was the matrix of John’s religion John taught that it was not enough to be a Jew — a child of Abraham — to enter the Kingdom. Not race but baptism was the bond of the new sect. As per Luke 3:10-14, the foreign soldier and unclean tax collector could become a member along beside the purest Jew.

The idea of a single religion accessible to all is outlined here. (p. 30)

The end

Couchoud follows Josephus for the account of John’s demise. John preached within the territory of Herod Antipas and beyond the direct borders of Rome. Herod’s Arabian wife fled from him to her father, the King of Petra, on learning Herod planned to get rid of her and marry his sister-in-law (Herodias) instead. Herod was now threatened with war with the King of Petra. Alarmed at the crowds John was attracting in his territory he had John arrested and executed. The war followed and Herod was defeated in 36 c.e. Josephus tells us that the Jews believed this defeat was a punishment for his murder of John. The gospel account is anachronistic with its having Herodias already married to Herod by the time of John’s imprisonment.

All of this has been covered in other posts (in particular discussing Zindler’s arguments for the Josephan account of John the Baptist not being original to Josephus). I cannot accept any of the narratives of John’s death. The Josephan account is too simplistic with its setting of the war over a personal insult — this recalls to mind the “saga” genre in which kings traditionally go to war over such personal affronts. And Dennis MacDonald (and, I think, Robert Price?) have pointed to other literary origins of Mark’s account of John’s death.

Other recent posts have also drawn attention to the symbolism underlying names like Paul and Simon. We cannot forget in this context the nagging suggestion that John has been thought to be linked with Oannes the water god. Is this also an epithet taken on by a historical person? But this is entirely speculative.

Had expected to cover what I recalled of Couchoud’s discussion of John the Baptist in a few sentences and complete a few chapters in one post here. I made the mistake, however, of opening the book again and seeing little details I thought I should add.

So next post in this series will be the final chapter in this first section of the book which takes us to A.D. 40. After that Couchoud enters the period 40 to 130 and the chapters leading up to where I began the section on the development of the Gospels and the New Testament.

I once posted links to pdf version of Couchoud’s opening chapters:

Foreward (approx 2.2 MB pdf)

Apocalypses (168 b.c. – a.d. 40)

I. Preliminary (approx 1.8 MB pdf)

II. Profaned Temple (approx 2.2 MB pdf)

III. The Dream of Daniel (approx 3.3 MB pdf)

IV. Revelations of Enoch (approx 6.7 MB pdf)

V. Revelations of Moses (approx 2.8 MB pdf)

I will comment on only a few aspects of some of these chapters. Read them — they are not long — to understand Couchoud’s argument for the background to Christianity and the references to much of what is below. I will only address a few points here.

These chapters are an overview of the pre-Christian development of the Jewish concept of the heavenly Son of Man figure. Daniel begins the process with a clearly symbolic figure, but later apocalypses turned that symbol into a more literal Heavenly Man.

Though the prophecies of Daniel failed, apparently, to materialize, Daniel’s work did set the trajectory for future apocalyptic hopes with its symbolic Son of Man figure. But he did not remain a symbol for too long.

What in Daniel is only a dazzling vision told in a few verses becomes in Enoch a detailed picture, a complete drama divided into several acts. This picture has a central figure; this drama boasts a hero. The Son of Man, who in Daniel is mere symbolism, is here a dweller in celestial halls, a heavenly Man who is not kneaded of dust and blood, but is pure like God, eternal like God, just like God, to whom God has allotted the mission of destroying the world and of making it anew. (p. 15)

This figure is the Chosen of God, the Great Judge, the Revealer. He thus takes on a theological significance. And he has a name, but the name is kept secret by Enoch (Enoch 47; 48:2-3). Until the day that God has chosen for him to fulfil his destiny he must remain hidden — even hidden before God (Enoch 47:6). God will reveal him only to the Elect — Enoch 62:7. And the world will learn to their terror that he is their Judge.

Enoch also calls him the Light to the Nations (Enoch 48:4) — a reference to Isaiah’s 49:6. He is also the hope of broken hearts — a reference to Isaiah 61:1. So this figure in Enoch has become a complex synthesis of

• Daniel’s Son of Man — with heavenly attributes of a throne and stars
• Isaiah’s Elect or Servant of Yahweh — with human attributes

Thus emerges the a figure with a double nature, god and man.

The contradictory logic of faith unites the two finest mythic creations of Israel. In a unique spiritual being are combined two allegorical persons who, in the Bible, are separate and without interrelation other than personifying Israel — the one gloriously, the other sorrowfully. (p. 18)

This figure takes from Isaiah’s allegorical person the role of the consoler, the sufferer, the elect, the redeemer,  the man of sorrows whose passion is expiatory.

When Daniel’s Son of Man will have assimilated all the Man of Sorrows of Isaiah, Christianity will be in existence. (p. 18)

This is the prototype we see in Enoch. Enoch worships this figure with the twin nature of being the terrible judge and the gentle teacher. But he is not yet a divine martyr.

The first destiny of this Son of Man figure was to wreak God’s vengeance on the earth. After all the bloodletting the righteous will inherit the earth in the company of the Heavenly Man.

It is in this book of Enoch (as Margaret Barker has also stressed in her publications) that we first see the outlines of Christianity. This figure will mature as he moves from Daniel to the Gospel of Luke. Paul, the author of Revelation, Jude, Matthew, Luke all knew this book well. The adherents of this book were in a sense our proto-Christians, keeping apart from the other sects, waiting the coming of the Son of Man, hating the world.

In The Revelations of Moses chapter we read of the meaning of the name Shiloh to pious Jews; the culmination of Daniel’s prophecies in a soon-expected calamitous judgement; and significantly in the Assumption of Moses we find reference to the Heavenly Man. Here he takes a new name, Messenger. This time unbelievers would be left on earth and the Elect, the saved, taken to heaven. Bands of readers sharing the hope wondered when it would all be fulfilled.

This is the background to the advent of John the Baptist. To be continued in next post. . . .

Apocalypse of Peter

Continuing the series archived at Couchoud: The Creation of Christ – - – (Couchoud argues that our “editor” – Clement? – compiled 28 books, one more than our current 27 that make up our New Testament and this post concludes the section where Couchoud discusses the origin of our New Testament books.)

The perfect balance of the New Testament still stood in need of a counterweight. Just as the tale of Peter counter-balanced that of Paul in Acts, so the letters of Paul required as counterpoise letters from the Twelve.  There were already in existence a letter by James and three by John.  To make up seven, our editor produced two letters by Peter and one by Jude, John’s brother. (p. 305)

I don’t know if Couchoud here means to suggest “the editor” wrote these epistles himself. I find it difficult to accept the two letters attributed to Peter are by the same hand given what I have come to understand of their strikingly different styles, but let’s leave that question aside for now and cover what Couchoud’s views were as published in English 1939.

1 Peter

This epistle is said to have been a warrant for the Gospel of Mark. (Maybe, but some have suggested the name of Mark for the gospel was taken from this epistle. If it were a warrant for Mark one might be led to call to mind the unusual character of that Gospel. Its reputation had been tinged with “heretical” associations.) In the epistle Peter calls Mark “my son” and is supposed to be in his company in Rome, biblically called “Babylon”. The inference this leads to is that Mark wrote of the life and death of Jesus as learned from the eyewitness Peter. This coheres with Justin’s own naming of the Gospel “Recollections of Peter” in his Dialogue, section 106.

The letter is “a homily addressed to baptized heathen of Asia Minor at the time of a persecution.” Its teachings can be seen to be of the same category as those addressed in the earlier discussions by Couchoud – typical of Clement and anti-Marcionite . . .

• the Jewish prophecies were meant solely for Christians
• imperial authorities needed to be greatly respected — (Couchoud says that the epistle refers to Pilate as one who judges righteously in 1 Peter 2:23, but I always took that phrase as a reference to God.)
• the answer is given to the question of the fate of those pagans who had died before having a chance to be saved by the Blood of the Lamb: Marcion had taught that all the sinners of old were saved by Jesus when he went down to hell; this epistle was not to be outdone by Marcion’s teaching.
• Women should not plait their hair: 1 Peter 3:3. This links with the Pastoral prohibition of the same: 1 Timothy 2:9. “This plaiting of the hair was the fashion in the time of the Antonine dynasty — that is second century.
• Charity covers a multitude of sins, found in 1 Peter 4:8, is also found in 1 Clement 49:5

Jude

The brief Epistle of Jude is an affirmation that the Christian faith has been given “once for all” by the Apostles, and a violent condemnation of all who “in their dreamings defile the flesh and set at nought dominion and rail at dignities,” and those who would classify people into psychics and spirituals and have not themselves the Spirit. We can recognize in these the Alexandrian Gnostics, Basilides, Carpocrates, who sought the way of salvation in the freedom of the flesh, and Valentinus in particular. The latter came to Rome shortly before Marcion and attempted to force himself into the Roman episcopacy. His astonishing Gospel of Truth and his sacrilegious and disorderly theology stunned the faithful. (pp. 306-307)

2 Peter

This is said to be the most coherent of the three letters. It presents itself as a witness of Peter. Its middle section is mostly a repetition of Jude. And it has three particular aims:

1. It addresses those disillusioned Christians whose hopes for the Coming of the Lord failed to materialize after their great expectations around the year 135, the second destruction of Jerusalem. (In support of this time-frame see my earlier post Identifying the “Man of Sin” in 2 Thessalonians.) Peter assures his readers that a day of the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. “So we have the impatient Christians put off to the year One Thousand.” We find Clement answering the same question with the same idea in 1 Clement 49:5.
2. This epistle has Peter approve the “right edition” of Paul’s epistles — the ones doctored by Clement and co — and disapprove of the Marcionite interpretation. 3:15-16 warns that there are those who fail to understand Paul’s letters, and that “the ignorant and the unsteadfast falsify them, as also the other scriptures, to their destruction.”
3. Peter also draws special attention to a book he is about to write so that after he is dead the faithful can recall certain things to their memories, for he had been with Jesus himself on the “holy mount” and heard a voice from the “excellent glory” speaking of His Beloved Son. “Evidently he had in mind a Revelation “more sure” than any other, including the Revelation of St. John: Go to 1 Peter 1:15-19. In this passage note μεγαλοπρεποῦς (and forms of this word = “majesty”) applied to God — “it is a favourite with Clement, appearing seven times in the Epistle to the Corinthians.”

And the work or scripture that “Peter” had in mind in point #3?

Probably . . . the Apocalypse of Peter. This work was intended by our editor to be the completion and perfection of the New Testament, doubling the older Revelation of St. John which was too hard for the Gentile and not over-edifying. Peter’s Revelation was used in the Roman Church till the end of the second century, but then lost ground before its powerful rival. (p. 308)

The Apocalypse of Peter

This Apocalypse or Revelation was listed as part of the canon by the Muratorian fragment and Clement of Alexandria quoted it as part of the New Testament according to Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, vi. 14. 1.

Couchoud suggests that Acts 1:3 (speaking of many proofs Christ gave the apostles after his resurrection and speaking of the Kingdom of God) was inserted as a lead up to Peter’s Revelation.

This Revelation is presented as one of the “many proofs” Christ gave to his disciples during the first 40 days after his resurrection:

Jesus is with his apostles on the Mount of Olives, the “holy mount”.

They ask him of the Great Judgment which is to be preceded by the destruction of the fig tree.

Peter wants to know what fig-tree and the answer is the fig-tree in the parable in Luke — that is, the Jews and the false Jew Messiah who persecuted Christians (Bar-Kochba).

Then there would be false prophets teaching destructive doctrines (e.g. Marcion)

They pray with him (note that prayer is a characteristic of Luke) then ask to be shown the face of one of the elect.

Two glorious men appear before them (snow white, rose pink, rainbow hair, etc)

Peter sees a beautiful flower carpeted land with high priests living like angels on one side, and a fowl, slimy, putrid place where 14 kinds of criminals are being tortured. Aborted babies shoot forth flames of fire into the eyes of their blood-soaked tormented mothers.

The Elect are privileged to see these tortures and to obtain some remission for their loved ones in that place.

Jesus prophecies that Peter will die in “a great city of the West”.

Jesus then takes his disciples up to the top of the holy mount and re-enacts the Transfiguration

Jesus is enveloped in a cloud, thus giving a third account of the Ascension (cf. Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:6-12) and the apostles go down the mountain praising God who has written the names of the Elect in a Book of Life.

Couchoud’s assessment of this work:

What is lacking in this literary vision, which is in spirit more pagan than Biblical, is sincerity, power, emotion, spontaneity, glamour, and the mighty sweep of the lofty vision of the seer of Patmos. The age of the prophets had surely heard its last hour strike. (p. 309)

Thus completed the New Testament

This collection thus counted 28 books, four groups of seven. Later the Revelation of Peter was suppressed.

The first 14 Scriptures came from the Twelve Apostles and their authorized interpreters.

The first group of 7

• 4 Gospels
• Acts
• 2 Revelations

Their authors

• Matthew, John, Peter (apostles)
• Mark, Peter’s “son”
• The dedicator to Theophilus who had carefully collected the traditions of the apostles

The second group of 7

• 7 “Catholic” epistles — i.e. those addressed generally.

Their authors

• James, Peter. Jude, John (apostles)

The second set of 14 Scriptures are from the second group of apostles — Paul and Barnabas (assigning the Epistle to the Hebrews to Barnabas)

Between these two groups there is no conflict; on the contrary, harmony reigns. Peter approved Paul’s Epistles, and so the Twelve walk hand in hand with Paul and Barnabas. The link between them is that writer to Theophilus who was such a diligent historian of the whole brigade of Apostles. There were no other Apostles than those fourteen, and they wrote nothing beyond the twenty-eight Scriptures. Hermas’s prophecy cannot be accepted, as it is not by an Apostle. [The Muratorian fragment makes this explicit.] Such was the compact and numerous Bible, closely linked with the Bible of the Jews, which the great Church henceforward opposed to the Scriptures of Marcion.

This ingenious, bold, liberal, and prudent builder has a right to applause, for he constructed out of a hotch-potch of writings a coherent and durable whole, strong to resist and powerful to prevail. In it all spiritual needs are satisfied. Its preservation is entrusted to the colleges for whose authority it is itself the foundation. Not a source of riches has been neglected in its compilation. Books sown and ripened in differing climates find in it a common strength in which all are strong in the support of their fellows. The four Gospels in this association appear as four independent testimonies which mutually corroborate and complete one another. The critical historian may reproach the architect with building wings under false names, with repairs, renovations, and false windows. Still he will admit that the architect was driven by necessity, and that without him the most ancient Christian documents might have been lost or dispersed.  (p. 310)

I began this latest series of Couchoud posts from half way through The Creation of Christ. After the first few chapters that I made available as pdf downloads I skipped the chapters where Couchoud discusses his views on how the Christian faith emerged and picked up his arguments for the creation of the New Testament. Before posting Couchoud’s final chapter I’ll backtrack and outline the gist of those earlier chapters.

Cover via Amazon

It’s worth quoting a few passages from Thomas L. Thompson‘s The Mythic Past (aka The Bible in History). I believe they have a relevance that extends beyond the Old Testament.

Naively realistic questions about historicity have always been most out of place when it has come to Israel’s origins — if only for the fact that the genre of origin stories that fills so much of the Bible relates hardly at all to historical events, to anything that might have happened. It rather reflects constitutional questions of identity. (pp. 34-35, my emphasis)

The genre of origin stories hardly relates at all to historical events? Now one sees the pressing need for Historical Jesus scholars to bypass standard scientific methods of dating documents in order to date the Gospels as close as they reasonably can to the presumed events contained in their narratives. How can an origin story not relate to history if the story is composed within living memory of the events? The circularity of this is never addressed as far as I am aware.

We know the events really happened. No-one would have made them up. How do we know?

Because the narrative is a historical record, more or less.

How do we know the narrative is a historical record?

Because it is about events we know really happened — no-one would have made them up.

And all the subsequent scholarly apparatus thought to bring us closer to the historical Jesus is built upon this logic.

This early dating is especially necessary given the clearly legendary and mythical character of the Gospels themselves. There is no doubt among scholars that many of the stories are mutations and midrash of narratives we read in the Jewish scriptures and elsewhere. From the first to last the narrative is an extension of the miraculous displays and spiritual metaphors and intrusions of divine characters that we read about in the Old Testament. Compare Thompson’s criticism of scholars of the OT:

It hasn’t helped that those who are interested in the development of historical research in this region have avoided the implications of the mythical and literary overtones that are a constant of all of the Bible’s stories. They have chosen rather a rhetoric that supports the assumption of historicity. For example, even when speaking of stories filled with literary fantasy, they speak of a ‘biblical record’ and of the Bible’s ‘account of the past’. The rhetoric of archaeology avoids the useful scepticism that historians usually have ready at hand whenever iron is reported to float on water. (p.38)

A genuine history of origin can be expected, I would think, to point to some link between the events and portrays and the group whose claims it to be their historical roots. But the Gospels conclude with the disappearance of Jesus and there is no clue as to how any of the other characters are linked to the people who claimed the story as their own. (The closest we come to that is the book of Acts.) I think most would expect a genuine historical narrative to express an interest in the human details of the past as we find in other ancient histories and biographies. The Gospel events are entirely explicable in terms of theological meaning and even their central character, Jesus, is nothing more than a mouthpiece or mime agent for ecclesiastical doctrines. As such, the Gospels do indeed reflect constitutional questions of identity of Christians as Thompson points out are the real nature of the origin story genre.

In the history of scholarship — both Jewish and Christian — that has been interested in historicizing these origin stories, central questions have too often turned on uncritical and arbitrary choices: Which of the Bible’s many stories of origin are to be read as if they were narratives about events of the past, and which are to be discarded as mere story?

This is expanded a little:

Each choice made involved the elimination of alternative stories. Each affirmation of the historicity or historical rootedness of one tradition bore with it implicit denials of the historicity of an alternative tradition. Each positivistic assertion that this or that aspect of tradition was ‘rooted in history’ bore with it a covert denial of other traditions.

Examples:

Some scholars chose the Genesis stories of the patriarchs and the conquests by Joshua as the tales that were “rooted in history”. Not that they took the literal details of the stories as true. Rather, the found these Biblical stories as “distantly reflecting” their broader historical models of Mid East migrations.

Others focussed on different stories for their historical reconstructions, and therefore found it necessary to dismiss the tales of Genesis and Joshua 6-12 as fiction. Some preferred the legend of Joshua 24, and the less bellicose stories of Judges 1-3. While arguing effectively against accepting the stories of Joshua as historical memory, they passed in silence the conquest stories of Judah and Simeon in Judges 1. They did not try to explain the Bible. They raided it for whatever they found illustrative or useful for their own historical interests. (p. 35, my emphasis)

So some scholars focussed on the archaeological excavation of Jericho and took this as evidence for the conquest stories in Joshua. Other scholars were more interested in anthropological questions and supported the evidence for more peaceful transitions in Palestine (nomadic peoples becoming settlers, etc.)

Their goal was neither to interpret nor to understand the Bible, but to use it as illustration for their archaeological research. (p. 36)

In place of archaeological research among historical Jesus scholarship we have historical models (often bringing in models from sociology and economic history etc – Crossley, Crossan; or simply various models of the person of Jesus – rabbi, revolutionary, etc. that more often than not reflect the personal interests and values of the scholars) and selections of NT literature to try to flesh out these models. Observe the way some scholars argue that more historical truth can be gleaned from the Gospel of John while others dismiss this notion utterly. Or more often, scholars will pick and choose whatever snippets from the various gospels can be pieced together to construct their historical narratives. A classic example of this is Paula Fredriksen’s Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, which is a hodge-podge of appeals now to the Synoptics, now to John who contradicts the Synoptics, in order to “support” her thesis accounting for the “fact” that Jesus was crucified while his followers were ignored. Sure each selection of “evidence” has to be justified, but it is ultimately justified by the needs of each hypothesis.

This is why I am so much more interested in literary analysis of the Gospels within their broader literary contexts. These are studies of what the Gospels actually are.

HJ scholars sometimes, unfortunately and contrary to the advice of Howell and Prevenier (From Reliable Sources) think of themselves as detective-archaeologists digging beneath the narrative to an assumed (imaginary) historical reality that is believed to sustain it. At least the scholars of “biblical Israel” had real archaeological digs to turn to. Scholars of the historical Jesus and Christian origins rely entirely on archaeology as a metaphor.

Hopi: Image via Wikipedia

Sorry about the sensationalist headline but, being a mortal, I couldn’t resist it this time. (I know one swallow doth not a summer make, but humour me till the rest turn up.)

I wish to thank Dr James McGrath, Clarence Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, for drawing my attention to a case study published by oral historian Jan Vansina in Oral Tradition as History (1985). (Note I used italics instead of quotation marks for the title this time so that there can be no doubt that I have actually read the book.) {for the uninitiated the link is to Dr McGrath’s post in which he points out that my earlier use of quotation marks for the title of the book is a “suspicious” indicator I had not read it}

Most students and many interested lay readers of New Testament scholarship know that there are two things that are generally accepted in the guild:

1. the first gospel was composed roughly around 40 years after the death of Jesus
2. the first gospel is more about a “Jesus of faith” than an historical Jesus since it is so riddled with mythological embellishments

In this post I show that a renowned oral historian publishes a case study that demonstrates the unlikelihood that mythological embellishments could possibly have been added to an “oral report” within 40 years of the event.

So what might the research of oral historians contribute to this critical NT and HJ discussion?

Keep in mind that an axiom of the historical Jesus scholarly guild is that the first Gospel — usually taken to be that of Mark, though some say Matthew, but for our purposes no matter which — is not to be taken as a straight historical record of the words and deeds of Jesus. It is filled, we are told (as if we needed to be reminded when we read of walking on water, talking to Being in heaven, predictions that the central character will descend from heaven in cataclysmic judgment, etc) with mythological embellishments. That is the very reason why, we are told, historical Jesus scholars cannot work like other historians but must assume the role of “detectives” and come up with additional criteria to convince the sceptics.

But at the same time historical Jesus scholars give the impression they feel like they are the ugly ducklings in the wider field of historical studies and must still justify their methods by appeals to the “real historians” who know next to nix about what biblical scholars are saying to each other. So we sometimes read of a “decontextualized” (one would never think to use those nasty “misrepresented/quote mining” word/s) reference that oral historian Jan Vansina garnered that supposedly most fortuitously supports some aspect of the New Testament paradigm “oral tradition” being the link between the life and death of Jesus and the first Gospel.

Let’s just get that clear. NT scholars as a rule assert that the first Gospel was written as a result of its author having access to oral traditions about Jesus that had been handed down since the actual time of Jesus.

But they also assert that the Gospels are not in themselves “historical records” of Jesus but are theological or mythological embellishments.

Now since one oral historian authority sometimes appealed to by HJ scholars is Jan Vansina let’s look at a case study of his that most people, I think, would consider comparable to the HJ-Gospel scenario hypothesis just outlined.

On page 19 of the work cited above oral historian Jan Vansina presents readers with a case study involving the Hopi tribe.

An illuminating case involves the Hopi of Arizona. Sometime between 1853 and 1856, ten Hopi were attacked by a party of Navaho as they returned to their home at First Mesa from a visit to the army Fort Defiance. At least four were killed. The Hopi village chief was among the dead. . . .

Two versions of the event were recorded late in 1892. First a generalized one giving the bare facts, followed three weeks later by the reminiscences of one of the survivors, Djasjini, who had been an adult at the time of the events. The second version is long, has greater detail, but essentially still narrates a sequence of events.  So almost forty years after the events there was still an eyewitness in the town. In fact, there were two. Hani, who had been a boy badly wounded in the affray, was still alive, had become a chief of the Singer’s Society, and had directed the whole Wuwutcim ceremony of 1892 at which occasion the first generalized version had been told. . . . (pp. 19-20)

So let’s get this clear.

The historical events took place around 1853 – 1856.

Two oral versions of the event were recorded in 1892.

“So almost forty years after the events there was still an eyewitness in the town.”

Now comes the interesting part:

A third version now clearly oral tradition was published by a Hopi in 1936.

That is, long after the departure of any eye-witnesses to wield a controlling presence on the tale. Around 80 years later.

Note also that Vansina had just finished explaining that an “oral tradition” (as distinct from an oral report) is something that is passed on after there are no longer any eye-witnesses alive. Any oral report overlapping with the existence of eyewitnesses is not an “oral tradition” as he defines it. Of oral reports, he says:

Interviews of this nature are always compared to available written or printed information and, if available also information from radio and television. (p. 13)

So what do we find long after the decease of the last eye-witness?

The tradition from personal narrative to collective narrative is completed. The differences with the previous versions [those 40 years after the events] consisted mainly of the addition of elements that altered the whole character of the story. . . . His role was slightly idealized so that it recalled the little Twin War of mythology.” (p. 20)

Notice that! It was only after the death of the last eye-witness to events that we find — a generation later — the first trappings of mythological embellishment to the historical events.

So again let’s be clear:

A third version — NOW a “clearly oral TRADITION” (not “oral history” — see Vansina’s definitions of the two as I pointed out earlier) — was published by a Hopi in 1936.

“The tradition from personal narrative to collective narrative is completed. The differences with the previous versions [those 40 years after the events] consisted mainly of the addition of elements that altered the whole character of the story. . . . His role was slightly idealized so that it recalled the little Twin War of mythology.” (p. 20)

Thus it was not till well after the death of all eye-witnesses that we begin to see the first mythological trimmings added on to a historical tale.

What this means for historical Jesus studies

So if Vansina’s example is a valid comparison, we should see a recording that is pretty much a straight factual account of Jesus without any mythological trappings for as long as there are any surviving eyewitnesses — up to 40 years later.

It would be more like 80 years, or certainly well after the departure of the last eye-witness — again on Vansina’s example, if it is valid (and McGrath appears to think it has some relevance) — before we can expect to see mythological elements incorporated into the tradition.

Conclusion

If we use the above case study as a guide we should not expect any record of Jesus within 40 years of his death to be anything more than a straight, bare-bones historical narrative. Yet this is clearly not what we have in the case of the Gospels, not even with the earliest written Gospel. Our earliest surviving written accounts of Jesus are predominantly mythological in character. If we use the Hopi study as a control, and if we are sure that Jesus had an historical career, then we should not expect any written accounts like the Gospels to appear until long, long after the time that HJ scholars say they did appear.

So we are left with three options — given, of course, the validity of the Hopi case study:

1. Either we reconsider the date of the earliest Gospel and set it around 100 c.e. at the earliest;
2. Or we keep ca. 70 c.e. as the date of the first Gospel and remove the crucifixion of Jesus back to the time of his birth;
3. Or we — surely not! — ask if the first Gospel was not grounded in genuine historical oral reports after all.

Cameron rightly notes that skeptics like me freely attack creationists for denying scientific consensus. But when it comes to the Christ myth, he declares “snubbing the consensus is problematic,” and feels it’s blatantly hypocritical:

“They don’t hesitate to throw around the consensus argument in that context. But when it comes to biblical history, tossing aside the consensus point of view is acceptable, because (conveniently) the evidence is on their side.”

But Cameron has just answered his own dilemma: it’s precisely because Mythicists have evidence that we challenge the current majority opinion – just as the evidence for natural selection challenged the dominant paradigm in Darwin’s time. Creationism isn’t wrong simply because it’s in the minority, and Evolution isn’t true just because the overwhelming majority of scientists say so; it’s true because it’s multiply attested by strong and compelling lines of evidence and has withstood, and continues to withstand, all rival theories. By contrast, there is nothing in Biblical studies that stands confirmed on anywhere near the level of certainty we get in any other branch of science. . . . .

Of course there is one professor who asserts that to the extent that biblical studies does have a degree of certainty (even though only a fraction of anything in the sciences), to that extent mythicists should respectfully submit to this consensus just as creationists should be rational and accept the authority of scientists. That one discipline is the foundation of all our modern progress and the other is a Mickey Mouse course doesn’t matter. What matters is that the most honourable professors in each have certainties. One just happens to have greater certainties than the other, that’s all. Let’s not mention that one of these sets of esteemed professors is dominated by persons who reject the evolution taught by the other guild by believing somehow evolution is something that can be guided or initiated by a divine being, who believe in spirit entities they can communicate with, etc.

Of course the reality is that evolution and the sciences have gained their authority by their public demonstrations of their proofs. In the case of evolution people are persuaded by the evidence the scientists can and regularly do present to them. Few people are truly impressed by appeals to authority. (Though obviously God-fearers must be so impressed. Maybe that’s why it’s theologians who presumably communicate with spirits who are so touchy about demanding respect for the authority of their opinions merely on the grounds that they agree with each other.) Historical Jesus scholars have nothing but circularity and assumptions to fall back on — oh, and angry insults, too, for those who don’t take their consensus views of their assumptions (not evidence) with reverential gravitas. Good thing we’ve come out of the dark ages and relegated them to niches far from the seats of civil authority.

The following post by David Fitzgerald is posted here with DF's permission; the original is at freethoughtblogs.com.

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

Is the “Jesus of History” any more real than the “Jesus of Faith”?

(From the upcoming book, Jesus: Mything in Action, by David Fitzgerald) 

Christianity had a good, long run. But we are long past the point where it’s reasonable to be agnostic about the so-called “Jesus of Faith.” It’s ridiculous to pretend the lack of historical corroboration of the spectacular Gospel events, let alone the New Testament’s own fundamental contradictions, aren’t a fatal problem for Jesus the divine Son of God.

For example:

• Why does Philo of Alexandria discuss the contemporary state of first century Jewish sects in several of his writings, but not a word on the multitudes who followed the miracle-worker and bold, radical new teacher Jesus throughout the Galilee and Judea – or of all the long-dead Jewish saints who emerged from their freshly opened graves and wandered the streets of Jerusalem, appearing to many?

• If Jesus was really found guilty of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin, why was he not simply stoned to death, as Jewish law required (Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:4 h & i)? Why is the original trial account of Jesus so full of other unhistorical details and just plain mistakes that could never have actually happen as portrayed? How can each successive gospel continue to overload the original story with their own additional layers of details that are mutually incompatible with the others?

• Why does Seneca the Younger record all kinds of unusual natural phenomena in the seven books of his Quaestiones Naturales, including eclipses and earthquakes, but not mention the Star of Bethlehem, the pair of Judean earthquakes that were strong enough to split stones, or the hours of supernatural darkness that covered “all the land” – an event he would have witnessed firsthand?

• Why can’t the Gospels agree on so many fundamental facts about Jesus’ life and ministry, such as what his relationship to John the Baptist was – and why was John the Baptist’s cult a rival to Christianity until at least the early second century?

• Who were Jesus’ disciples, and why is it no Gospels agree on who they were? Why do the disciples disappear so quickly in the New Testament after the Gospels, only to pop up again centuries later when churches start spinning rival legends that they were busy founding Christian communities all along? If any were martyred for their faith, as Christians frequently insist, why don’t we have any details of any of the disciples’s deaths in the bible?

• When his skeptical Roman opponent Celsus asks the early church father Origen what miracles Jesus performed, why can Origen only respond lamely that Jesus’ life was indeed full of striking and miraculous events, “but from what other source can we can furnish an answer than from the Gospel narratives?” (Contra Celsum, 2.33)

• Why can’t the Gospels agree on so many fundamental facts about Jesus’ life and ministry?  For instance, if he was born during the reign of Herod the Great, or over a decade later, during Quirinius’ tenure? Or why he was arrested? Or on which day he died? Or whether he appeared alive again for just a single day, or for more about a week, or for forty days? Or where and when he appeared alive again, and to whom?

• Why are there so many anachronisms and basic mistakes and misunderstandings about first century Judean Judaism? Why are the Gospels all written in Greek, not Aramaic? Why do Christians insist that they are eyewitness accounts when none claim to be, or even read as if they were, or if all contain indications that they were written generations later?

• Why is Paul – and every other Christian writer from the first generation of Christianity – so silent on any details of Jesus’ life? Why do they display so much ignorance of Jesus’ teachings and miracles?

• Despite the frequent boasts in the New Testament of Christianity spreading like wildfire, attracting new converts by the thousands with every new miracle or inspired sermon, why does Christianity remain a struggling, obscure cult of feuding house churches on the fringe of Roman society for more than three centuries?

• Why is there not a single historical reference to Jesus in the entire first century; a pair of obviously interpolated snippets in the works of Flavius Josephus notwithstanding?

We could pose similar thorny questions all day and never run out of them. It’s embarrassing to have to dignify any of the obvious mythological elements of the Gospels, and yet the better part of 2.1 billion people seem unaware of how ludicrous any of them are. We don’t even have to rule out whether or not miracles even can occur, or point out that stories, delusions and lies are common while verified miracles are few if any – we merely have to ask: if they did happen, why didn’t anyone else notice them? Christians are perfectly free to put their faith in whichever messiah they please, though it will take more than blind faith and selective hearing to convince the rest of us that their Christ is anything more than a Jesus of their own making. But what about the real Jesus?

Apologists love to parrot the old lie that “no serious historians reject the historicity of Christ,” but fail to realize (or deliberately neglect to mention) that the “Historical Jesus” that the majority of historians do accept is at best no more than just another first century wandering preacher and founder of a fringe cult that eventually became Christianity – in other words, a Jesus that completely debunks their own.

For your average atheist activist, all this should be more than enough to settle the matter. But the truth is, the issue isn’t even that cut and dry. What about this “Historical Jesus” at the core of all this legendary accretion? Can we actually know what the real Jesus of Nazareth really said and did?

Over a decade ago, after reading Ken Smith’s hilarious and brilliant Ken’s Guide to the Bible, I became curious to know the answers to questions like these. (Very) long story (very) short: I began researching the historical evidence for Jesus, a process of pulling a thread that, for me, unraveled the whole sweater. The result is my book Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All.  And I really mean it; I’m convinced there couldn’t even have been an ordinary guy behind our familiar Jesus of Nazareth. No, really.

The H Word

Isn’t there an atheist Jesus? You might think so, from how vehemently some of my fellow heretics defend him. I’ve long since gotten used to their usual charges: this doesn’t matter; this is all old stuff, this was long since discredited by all reputable scholars. Charitable critics call it just minority opinion; the less so call it nothing more than historical revisionist nonsense, fringe pseudo-scholarship, junk history, crackpottery, the atheist equivalent of creationism, etc. Robert Price, as usual, answered this crowd best when he asked: the Jesus Myth theory has been debunked? When did that happen? The truth is, the arguments of the Mythicist camp have never been rebutted – they’ve been ignored, declared to be mistaken, or simply irrelevant; in short, they’ve only ever been, in a word, Harrumphed.

In fact, ironically enough, comparing Jesus Myth theory with creationism is exactly 100% backwards. Consider: Evolutionary theory first began to be taken up when higher education was completely under the thumb of Christianity. Contrary to popular belief, it did not begin with Darwin. His bombshell was the mass extinction event, but the cracks had started accumulating in Creationism’s official story long before him. Discoveries in biology, zoology, geology and other fields of science all built up a steady pressure on beloved, long-accepted biblical “facts” of the Flood of Noah, the Garden of Eden, the Firmament, and the like, until the contrary evidence reached such a critical mass that finally – however much it displeased the clergy and their flocks – no intellectually honest academic could deny it. And then the great paradigm shift began.

Not that I’m comparing Jesus Myth to as earthshaking a concept as Natural Selection, but again, consider the parallels for a moment. Most historians aren’t biblical historians; so when the question of Jesus’ historicity comes up, it’s only natural that they’ll turn to the majority opinion of bible scholars. But who are the majority of biblical scholars?  Biblical history has always been an apologetic undertaking in the service of Christianity; even today it remains perhaps the only field of science still overtly dominated by believers. So to begin with, how many of them do you suppose are open to entertaining the idea that the lord and savior they depend on for their salvation might never have existed?

So of course this is minority opinion – and likely always will be as long as biblical studies continue. As theologian Wilhelm Wrede cautioned in the 19th century, facts are sometimes the most radical critics of all. Every single advance in the history of biblical scholarship has begun as heresy. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where now, secular biblical historians are the only ones who are actually uncovering new strides in the field – the majority are too busy circling the wagons to protect their doctrines and dogma from dangerous new knowledge.

And even among secular biblical scholars, it is difficult to find one who doesn’t come out of a religious background. Rabbi Jon D. Levensen, one of today’s most prominent Jewish biblical scholars, notes, “It is a rare scholar in the field whose past does not include an intense Christian or Jewish commitment.” (The Hebrew Bible: The Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies, Westminster John Knox Press, 1993, p. 30) What’s more, religious scholar Timothy Fitzgerald (no relation) points out in The Ideology of Religious Studies (Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 6-7) that theological assumptions are a pervasive difficulty in the field, not merely among practicing believers, but for the formerly religious as well: “even in the work of scholars who are explicitly non-theological, half-disguised theological presuppositions persistently distort the analytical pitch.”

But the problem of bias aside, the old paradigm of Jesus studies has long been showing worrisome cracks of its own. Incidentally, in his devastating The End of Biblical Studies (Prometheus, 2007) Hector Avalos has convincingly demonstrated that cracks are rife throughout the entire field. First of all, it is a misnomer to even refer to the “Historical Jesus” as if there ever was any such clearly defined thing. Nor it is correct to think that there is only one.

Who Do Men Say That I am?

Albert Schweitzer in his From Reimarus to Wrede: A History of Research on the Life of Jesus (1906), was already discovering that every scholar claiming to have uncovered the “real” Jesus seemed to have found a mirror instead; each investigator found Jesus was a placeholder for whatever values they held dear. Over a century later, the situation has not improved – quite the contrary.  To say there is still no consensus on who Jesus was is an understatement. A quick survey (Price presents excellent examples in his Deconstructing Jesus, Prometheus, 2000, pp. 12-17) shows we have quite an embarrassment of Jesi:

Cynic philosopher – The many borrowings from Greek philosophy in Jesus’ teachings would make sense if Jesus had actually been a wandering Cynic or a Stoic philosopher, or the Galilean equivalent. Burton L. Mack, John Dominic Crossan, Gerald Downing and others have strongly defended this view, citing plenty of Cynic statements with their equivalents in the Gospels.

Liberal Pharisee – Something like his predecessor, the famous Rabbi Hillel.  In Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus, historian Harvey Falk argues that virtually all of Jesus’ judgments on the Halakha, the Jewish law, are paralleled in the Pharisaic thought of that time, as well as later rabbinic thought.

Charismatic Hasid – Similarly, Dead Sea Scroll authority Geza Vermes, an expert on New Testament-era Judaism and author of Jesus the Jew: a Historian’s View of the Gospels, sees Jesus as one of the popular freewheeling Galilean holy men, unorthodox figures like Hanina Ben-Dosa or Honi the Circle-Drawer. Just like Jesus, they had little respect for the niceties of Jewish law, which of course ticked off the religious establishment.

Conservative Rabbi – On the other hand, Jesus upholds the Torah, insisting “not one jot or stroke of the Law will pass away” (Matthew 5:17–19).  He wears a prayer shawl tasseled with tzitzit (Matt. 9:20-22), observes the Sabbath, and worships in synagogues as well as the Temple.

Antinomian Iconoclast – But on the other other hand, Jesus then turns around and point by point dismantles the Torah (Mark 7:18-20, Matt. 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-37, 38-42, 43-44, etc.) and dismisses the Temple (Matt. 12:6, 23:16, 13:1-2, Luke 21:5-6).  

Magician/Exorcist/Faith Healer – Morton Smith, discoverer (or more likely, its forger – but that’s another story) of the Secret Gospel of Mark made the argument that Jesus the Christ was actually Jesus the Magician in the book of the same name.  Like the pagan miracle workers, Jesus cast out demons and healed the blind, deaf, and mute with mud and spit, using the same spells, incantations and techniques as taught in the many popular Greek magic handbooks of the time (Mark 5:41; 7:33–34).

Violent Zealot Revolutionary – But maybe Jesus was really a political messiah, inciting a revolt against the Romans; like Theudas or “the Egyptian,” the unnamed Messianic figure Josephus describes, or the two “robbers” crucified with him (since rebel bandits were commonly referred to as “robbers”). Why else would it be the Romans crucifying him, rather than the Jewish Sanhedrin just stoning him to death for blasphemy?  There is evidence one can point to: Luke’s Gospel lists a disciple called Simon “the Zealot,” and seems to hint that Jesus had other Zealots in his entourage: at the Last Supper, Jesus tells his followers to grab their bags and buy a sword (22:36); they tell him they already have two swords on hand (22:38); when Jesus is about to be arrested they ask if they should attack (22:49).  In Mark 14:47, one of the disciples does just that and cuts off the ear of one of the High priest’s men (the story grows more details in the other Gospels: Matt. 26:51-52, Luke 22:50-51, John 18:10). Many capable scholars including Robert Eisler, S. G. F. Brandon, Hugh J. Schonfield, Hyam Maccoby, and Robert Eisenman have thought this is where the real Jesus is to be found, and there are many scholarly variations arguing for the Jesus as Che theory.

Nonviolent Pacificist Resister – but then again, Jesus isn’t called the Prince of Peace for nothing; there’s no trace of such political agitation when he instructs his followers “if someone strike you on the right cheek, turn the other also” (Matthew 5:39), or when conscripted by Roman soldier to lug their gear for a mile, to “go with him two” (Matt. 5:41).

Apocalyptic Prophet – This is the Jesus that Albert Schweitzer and many subsequent historians have thought was the real thing: A fearless, fiery Judgment Day preacher announcing that the end was nigh and the Kingdom of God was coming fast.  Like Paul (and many other first century Jewish apocalyptists) this Jesus did not expect the world to survive his own lifetime.   Bart Ehrman makes a well-reasoned case for such a figure in Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.

First-Century Proto-Communist – Was Jesus the first Marxist?  Milan Machoveč and other leftists have thought so. You have to admit Jesus has nothing good to say about the capitalist pigs of his day (Luke 6:24, 12:15), repeatedly preaching that they cannot serve both god and money (Matt. 6:24, Luke 16:13), that they should sell all they own and distribute the money to the poor (Matt. 19:21, Mark 10:21, Luke 18:22) and most famously, that it is easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than for the rich to get into heaven (Matt.19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25) – and don’t forget his casting the Moneychangers out of the Temple with a scourge. Acts not only depicts the early Christians as sharing everything in common, it even the states the Marxist credo: “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need” (Acts 4: 34-35).

Early Feminist – Or was he the first male Feminist?  Some scholars like Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Kathleen Corley point to his unusual attitudes towards women, some of which seem remarkably progressive for the first century.  They say not only were some of his closest followers women, but he forgave the woman caught in adultery, and challenged social customs concerning women’s role in society (John 4:27, Luke 7:37, Matt. 21:31-32).

Earthy Hedonist – Or was he a male chauvinist pig?  Onlookers criticize him for being “a glutton and a drunk” who consorts with riffraff like tax collectors and whores (Luke 5:30; 5:33-34; 7:34, 37-39,44-46).

Family Man – but then again, Jesus is a champion of good old family values when he gets even tougher than Moses, ratcheting Old Testament law up a notch and declaring “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11–12). He also reminds his followers to honor their father and mother, then sternly warns “whoever speaks evil of father and mother must surely die” (Matthew 15:4).

Home Wrecker – Though when Jesus speaks evil of the family, apparently it’s okay: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). When Jesus is told his mother and brothers have come to see him, Jesus ignores them and asks, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” (Matt. 12:47-48) “Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Matthew 10:34–35).

Savior of the World – But despite all that, Jesus loves everyone; he even preached to Samaritans (John 4:39-41; Luke 17:11-18) and Gentiles (Matt. 4:13-17, 24-25).

Savior of Israel (only) – Well, he loves everyone except Samaritans or Gentiles.

When a Canaanite woman begs him to heal her daughter he ignores her; after the disciples ask him to make her go away, he first refuses, saying “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). When Jesus sends out his disciples, he commands them not to preach the good news to Gentile regions or Samaritan cities (Matthew 10:5-6).

Radical Social Reformer – Still others like John Dominic Crossan and Richard Horsley see Jesus as a champion for the Jewish peasants suffering under the yoke of the Roman Empire and its rapacious tax collectors; a Jesus somewhat along the lines of Gandhi and his struggle against the British Empire.

Will the Real Jesus Please stand up?

How plausible are any of these reconstructions? As Price notes in Deconstructing Jesus (p. 15), many of the above are quite plausible, make good sense of a number of gospel texts, don’t violate accepted historical method, aren’t impossibly anachronistic, and are the result of deep and serious scholarship. As far as it goes, all of them have their strengths.   None of them are particularly far-fetched.  All tend to center on particular constellations of Gospel elements interpreted in certain ways, and reject other data as inauthentic –something all critical historians do, regardless of the subject.  All appeal to solid historical analogies for their new take on Jesus. But, as Bart Ehrman points out, one fatal flaw haunts most if not all of them:

“The link between Jesus’ message and his death is crucial, and historical studies of Jesus’ life can be evaluated to how well they establish that link.  This in fact is a common weakness in many portrayals of the historical Jesus: they often sound completely plausible in their reconstruction of what Jesus said and did, but they can’t make sense of his death. If, for example, Jesus is to be understood as a Jewish rabbi who simply taught that everyone should love God and be good to one another, why did the Romans crucify him?”

(Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, p. 208)

Ehrman adds that for most theories, their proposed connections between Jesus’ life and his death are at times rather shaky and unconvincing.  But to be fair, the problem may go deeper than just poor reconstructions.  After all, the original source for all of them, the Gospels, also fail to make a credible link between Jesus’ life and death – and disagree with each other on just what led to Jesus’ death.

And incidentally, the list above is not the last word on revisionist Jesuses; there are even more reasonably plausible “Historical Jesuses” to consider before you finally reach all the hopelessly crackpot Jesus theories moldering away at the bottom of the barrel.  But this multiplicity of convincing possibilities is precisely the problem: the various scholarly reconstructions of Jesus cancel each other out.  Each sounds good until you hear the next one.  Price makes this very clear:

“What one Jesus reconstruction leaves aside, the next one takes up and makes its cornerstone. Jesus simply wears too many hats in the Gospels – exorcist, healer, king, prophet, sage, rabbi, demigod, and so on.  The Jesus Christ of the New Testament is a composite figure…The historical Jesus (if there was one) might well have been a messianic king, or a progressive Pharisee, or a Galilean shaman, or a magus, or a Hellenistic sage.  But he cannot very well have been all of them at the same time.”

(Deconstructing Jesus, pp. 15-16)

The Jesus Seminar’s John Dominic Crossan has observed this very problem and has frankly complained that the plethora of historical Jesus reconstructions has turned into a circus. In his The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, New York, HarperSanFrancisco, 1992) he puts it bluntly:

“But that stunning diversity is an academic embarrassment. It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that historical Jesus research is a very safe place to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography and call it biography.”

(p. xxviii)

The upshot of all this is simply that all of the secular reconstructions of the “Historical Jesus” remain speculative. No one can claim to have cornered the market. And there is a good reason for that – our problematic historical sources for Jesus.

What can we know? Sources for Jesus

Despite centuries of historical scholarship on a figure millennia old, we have not been able to come up with a single verifiable fact about Jesus. Not one. And how could we? Our only sources are nowhere near trustworthy. What are the sources? As I hope I made very clear in Nailed, though many people assume there were scores of contemporary historical witnesses who mentioned Jesus (and this assumption is both encouraged and trumpeted by apologists) the truth is that there are exactly – none. Bart Ehrman details the depth of the problem:

“What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing references – nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the years after his death – even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era – there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. I should stress that we do have a large number of documents from the time – the writings of poets, philosophers, historians, scientists, and government officials, for example, not to mention the large collection of surviving inscriptions on stone and private letters and legal documents on papyrus. In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus’ name ever so much as mentioned.”

(Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, p. 56-57)

On nearly every criteria of historical verification available, Jesus has no evidence at all, and even where there is any at all, the evidence of the Gospels is not the best, but the very worst kind of evidence – a handful of biased, uncritical, unscholarly, unknown, second-hand witnesses.

(Incidentally, Richard Carrier has made this abundantly clear in both Sense and Goodness Without God’s sections on Miracles and Historical Method (pp. 227 ff), and ch. 7 of Not the Impossible Faith)

As it turns out, even in the New Testament, our sources boil down to just the Gospels. Searching for biographical information in Paul’s letters reveals a mythological figure, and the epistles forged in the names of apostles contain no details on their Lord’s life either; even the author posing as Peter can only quotemine Old Testament prophecies for his “eyewitness testimony”!

Of course, there are far more gospels written than just our familiar four, but they only muddy the water further. And regardless of the number of gospels you may choose to accept, for centuries biblical scholars have been in agreement that all ultimately stem from the original one: the modest, anonymous, imperfect, no-frills book entitled The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, much later renamed The Gospel According to Mark.

Without repeating all the arguments given in Nailed and other books, suffice it to say that none of this is an invention of godless atheists; the overwhelming consensus of all biblical scholars has long recognized the priority of Mark and that the solution to the infamous “Synoptic Problem” is that Matthew and Luke were directly dependent on Mark. Every gospel writer after Mark made their own “corrections,” additions and changes, but even those much later works like the Gospel of John (and Peter, Mary, Judas, et al) were all were to some degree taken from Mark’s original, no matter how far off they go in different directions of their own.

The overabundance of Gospels is the main reason for contradictions between them, but not the only reason. Even manuscripts of the exact same gospel texts do not always agree with each other. And all of the existing manuscripts suffer from interpolations and alterations from every time period that we can examine – and for the first 150 or 200 years of Christianity, there is a blackout period in which we have absolutely no way to check the reliability of any biblical manuscripts – from the second century nothing survives but handfuls of tiny papyrus scraps; from the first century, nothing at all.

Another serious problem is the startling number of unhistorical fabrications and anachronistic mistakes of the Gospels. Matthew is constantly correcting Mark’s errors about basic Judaism and Palestinian life and geography. Luke claims (1:1-4) to be the only gospel of many that gives the real story; but this is a blatant lie, since he’s plagiarized his Gospel from Mark and perhaps Matthew, too (with other details swiped from real historians like Flavius Josephus, as Josephan expert Steve Mason and other historians have detailed). Pagan and Jewish critics have been pointing out holes in the Gospels almost from the beginning; their arguments and harsh criticisms are still just as sharp and relevant nearly 2000 years later.  The “biography” of Jesus simply does not hold up under scrutiny.

But was Mark even a biography in the first place? Mark tells us what he is doing right from the outset: he is writing a gospel, not a history or a biography (Mark 1:1).  And numerous historians, including Arnold Ehrhardt, Thomas Brodie, Richard Carrier, Randel

Helms, Dennis MacDonald, Jennifer Maclean and others have detailed the ways that Mark’s entire Gospel is a treasure trove of symbolic, rather than historical, meaning. This is allegory, not history.

Could Jesus have been a Stealth Messiah?

Is it possible that despite our total lack of reliable documentation, there could still have been a real Jesus who lies buried underneath centuries of legendary accretion? It’s certainly possible. Is it plausible? Maybe. Do I think that’s what happened? Not really. As I say in the final chapter of Nailed, “Can Jesus be Saved?”:

“There comes a point when it no longer makes sense to give Jesus the benefit of a doubt. Even if we make allowances for legendary accretion, pious fraud, the criteria of embarrassment, doctrinal disputes, scribal errors and faults in translation, there are simply too many irresolvable problems with the default position that assumes there simply had to be a historical individual (or even a composite of several itinerant preachers) at the center of Christianity.”

I go on to provide of how differently the New Testament and early Christianity would look if even a merely human Jesus had been an actual historical figure.  One problem I find with the suggestion that Jesus was a fairly unknown figure in reality has to do with the other messianic figures we know about in this period.  There was certainly no shortage of saviors then; we know of a surprising number of wanna-be Judean messiahs from around the time of the first century. Here are some of them:

John the Baptist – John appears in all four gospels and defers to Jesus, but we actually have more extrabiblical evidence for John than Jesus. Josephus mentions John the Baptist briefly, and his sect shows up in a 2nd century Apocryphal Acts novel, the Clementine Recognitions (where they are debating against their rivals, the Christians, and arguing that John the Baptist, not Jesus, was the messiah). The first chapter of Luke appears to have been taken from Baptist scriptures originally, with Jesus and Mary added later.

Apollonius of Tyana – Philostratus the Elder wrote a biography of this Neopythagorean philosopher and alleged miracle worker, though many now question whether Philostratus’ earlier biographical sources (or their subject) ever really existed at all.

“The Egyptian” - In Acts, Luke name-drops the name of three failed messiahs lifted from Josephus. Incidentally, Luke’s mistakes describing these figures are one of the reasons we know he was stealing from Josephus, and not vice versa. This one, known only as “The Egyptian” (possibly as a nod to Moses, rather than his actual nationality) led his followers up to the Mount of Olives so they could watch him command the walls of Jerusalem to fall down. For some reason, this plan failed, the Romans slaughtered his flock, and he fled.

Judas of Galilee and Theudas the Magician - Luke has the famous rabbi Gamaliel mention the failed uprisings both of these two messianic pretenders in a speech shortly after Jesus’ death (Acts 5:34-37); unfortunately for Luke, Theudas’ uprising wasn’t until over a decade after this, under the reign of Fadus, procurator from 44 to 46. Compounding the error, Luke also blunders by reversing the correct order and saying Judas came after Theudas, when in fact Judas came first, predating Theudas by decades!

Athronges the Shepherd and Simon of Peraea – Judas of Galilee’s uprising was one of several after Herod the Great’s death. Athronges the Shepherd and Simon of Peraea were two other failed usurpers mentioned by Josephus (Simon, a slave of Herod’s, was also mentioned in Tacitus).

“An Imposter” - An unnamed Moses-like messiah who promised to deliver his followers to freedom if they would follow him into the wilderness; but only succeeded in getting them and himself slaughtered by troops sent by the Roman governor Festus.

“The Taheb” – An unnamed Samaritan styling himself as the Samaritan messiah the Taheb (“the Restorer”) led his armed followers to their sacred Mount Gerizim, where he would show them “sacred vessels” buried there by Moses – or at least, he would have, if Pilate and his forces hadn’t gotten there first, killing many of them in battle, scattering the rest, and executing the leaders, including “The Taheb.”

Jonathan the Weaver – yet another Moses-like messiah who convinced a throng to follow him into the wilderness with promises of “signs and apparitions,” only to have the Romans come and kill most of them.

Carabbas – Philo of Alexandria describes this madman who was forced to become a mock-king by a street mob in ways that eerily parallel Christ’s mockery by the Roman guards in the Gospels.

Yeshua ben Hananiah/Jesus ben-Ananias – In The Jewish War, Josephus mentions another madman, this one in Jerusalem, who also shares some striking similarities to our familiar Jesus; so much so that like Carabbas, his story may well have been an inspiration to Gospel writers. This “very ordinary yokel” one day becomes a doomsday prophet, and after wandering the streets day and night shouting, until he is beaten by irate listeners. The Jewish authorities take him before the Roman procurator, where he is “scourged till his flesh hung in ribbons” before being released. Josephus explicitly notes repeatedly he says nothing in his own defense.

Simon bar-Giora – Yet another messianic figure with interesting similarities to Jesus, revolutionary Simon was welcomed with leafy branches into Jerusalem as a deliverer and protector from another wanna-be messiah, the Zealot John of Gischala, whose faction had occupied the sacred precinct. After this triumphant entry he commenced the cleansing of the temple, “sweep(ing) the Zealots out of the City.” But Simon ultimately surrendered to the Romans and after suffering abuse at the hands of his guards, was executed as a would-be king of the Jews.

Other Gospels, Other Jesuses, Other Christs

If Jesus’ fame was anywhere near the levels depicted in the Gospels (Multitudes following him, fame spreading throughout Judea, to Syria, Egypt, the ten cities of the Decapolis league, etc.) his achievements were easily on par with even the best of these. So why did loser messianic figures like “the Taheb” and Jonathan the Weaver and the rest manage to leave a historical footprint – but not Jesus?

Conversely, if Jesus was so forgettable he wasn’t even as interesting as any of these (and still others), then how did he inspire a fringe religion of tiny feuding house churches to pop up all across the far-flung corners of the Roman empire?

And there’s still another consideration – what about all the other Christs of the first and second century that we find in the Gospels, Paul’s letters and other early Christian writings? As I mention in Nailed (pp. 151-152)

Paul himself complains about the diversity among early believers, who incredibly treat Christ as just one more factional totem figure, some saying they belong to Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas – or to Christ. Paul asks, “Has Christ been divided?” (1 Cor. 1:10-13). Paul also repeatedly rails against his many rival apostles, who “preach another Jesus.” In his letters Paul often rages and fumes that his rivals are evil deceivers, with false Christs and false gospels so different from his own true Christ and true Gospel, that he accuses them of being agents of Satan and even lays curses and threats upon them! (2 Cor. 11:4, 13-15,19-20, 22-23; Gal. 1:6-9; 2:4)

Other early Christians were just as concerned as Paul. The Didakhê, an early manual of Christian church practice and teachings, spends two chapters talking about wandering preachers and warning against the many false preachers who are mere “traffickers in Christs,” or as Bart Ehrman wonderfully names them, “Christmongers” (Didakhê 12:5).

The evidence is clear; there were many different Jesuses and Christs being preached in the first century (and even into the early second century, when the Didakhê was written). No single individual Jesus made an impact on history, but many different ones made an impact on theology; at least on the cultic fringe. The “Stealth Messiah” approach to the problem simply fails to make any sense of the evidence.

It’s a Mystery (A Mystery Faith, that is)

As Price, and others before him, observed (and as I’ll argue in Jesus: Mything in Action), Jesus appears to be an effect, not a cause, of Christianity. Paul and the rest of the first generation of Christians searched the Septuagint translation of Hebrew scriptures to create a Mystery Faith for the Jews, complete with pagan rituals like a Lord’s Supper, Gnostic terms in his letters, and a personal savior god to rival those in their neighbors’ longstanding Egyptian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman traditions.

Written generations later, the entire Gospel of Mark – the original gospel all the rest were based on – is one great parable to conceal the secret, sacred truths of this mystery faith, the Mystery of the Kingdom of God. Mark has Jesus give this clue to the reader of his Gospel:

“The Mystery of the Kingdom of God is given to you, but to those who are outside everything is produced in parables, so that when they watch they may see but not know, and when they listen they may hear but not understand, for otherwise they might turn themselves around and be forgiven.”

(Mark 4:11)

This exclusive secrecy makes no sense at all for a savior who came to save the whole world, but it makes perfect sense if Christianity began as a mystery faith. Like the pagan mysteries, the truths of Mark’s mystery of the Kingdom of God are being concealed behind parables, only explained to insiders. Mark is not reporting history; he is creating a framework for passing on a sacred mystery to a chosen few and no one else.

Jesus: Mything in Action

Even if there had been a historical Jesus that somehow managed to simultaneously spawn all this diversity without leaving a trace in the contemporary historical record, the fact is for all practical purposes, there isn’t one any more! No sources we have can be reliably linked to anyone who really was on earth two thousand years ago. As Schweitzer and so many others have realized, any real Jesus is irrecoverable, completely lost to us. Price adds:

“What keeps historians from dismissing (Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others) as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue.  We know at least a bit of mundane information about them, perhaps quite a bit, that does not form part of any legend cycle.  Or they are so intricately woven into the history of time that it is impossible to make sense of that history without them.  But is this the case with Jesus? No. Jesus must be categorized with other legendary founder figures including the Buddha, Krishna, and Lao-tzu.  There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure.”

(Deconstructing Jesus, pp. 260-261)

Though there’s simply no way to prove that no “real” Jesus ever existed behind what Price aptly calls the Stained-Glass Curtain, the closer you look for him the harder he is to see.  When we search for what we think of as new innovations brought about by Jesus, invariably we find the same ideas have already come from some other source.  He was a placeholder for all the values bestowed by all the other savior gods; he taught all the things Greek philosophers and Jewish Rabbis taught; he performed the same miracles, healings and resurrections the pagan magicians and exorcists did; in other words Jesus Christ was not a real person, but a synthesis of every cherished and passionate notion the ancient world came up with – noble truths, gentle wisdom, beloved fables, ancient attitudes, internal contradictions, scientific absurdities, intolerable attitudes and all.

We are past the tipping point: it’s no longer reasonable to assume that there had to have been a single historic individual who began Christianity. In fact, as we’ve seen, the evidence points away from such a conclusion. What we see instead is a historical record complete devoid of corroboration for the Gospels; a Darwinian theological environment teeming with rival Jesuses, Christs, gospels and house cults competing along the religious fringe of the Roman empire (and languishing there for three centuries); indications that the first generation of Christianity began as a Jewish version of the Mystery Faiths, and that all the confused, contradictory “biographical” information for Jesus stems from a deliberate allegory. A single founding figure is not just unnecessary to explain all this; it is unwarranted.

***

David Fitzgerald is the author of the critically acclaimed Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All, voted one of the Top 5 Atheist/Agnostic Books of 2010 in the AboutAtheism.com Reader’s Choice Awards.  The follow up to Nailed is Jesus: Mything in Action, which will be coming out in 2012.

You can find him and Nailed on Facebook.

Nailed continues to garner more fans and accolades, and generate cranky hate mail. I was especially proud to see Nailed voted one of the top 5 Atheist/Agnostic Books of 2010 in this year’s AboutAtheism.com Reader’s Choice Awards! It’s a real thrill to have my book honored alongside world-class authors like the late, great Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Hawkins and all the contributors of John Loftus’ awesome, paradigm-wrecking collection The Christian Delusion. (From DF’s blog)

I’m especially pleased that David has given me permission to post a large chunk of his recent blogpost here. I began a couple of times to address Tim O’Neill’s ‘review’ of Nailed but never got beyond his first few points — Tim was so far from relating to anything that is actually written in the book that I could see it would take more time than it was worth to point it all out. (Perhaps we can coin a word for these sorts of anti-mythicist non-reviews; someone has suggested Grathneilians — though David happily reports he got along well with Dr McGrath, so that’s good.)  So I usually ended up just posting two links: one to the first part of Tim’s review and the other to the relevant portion of Nailed online so anyone could read for themselves how off the planet Tim’s remarks were.

(There is another review of the bookhere.)

So I’m especially pleased David himself has taken the time to respond. Check it out on his blog where there are other comments. Since I know many hate following links I’ve sought permission to post it here, too:

And Then There’s This Guy…

That said, there is one review that I do want to respond to here; not simply because it’s almost completely wrong, but because it’s often so ass-backwards wrong in ways that actually prove the points I argue. (and because demonstrating all this gives a surprisingly high entertainment value) It’s the screed-in-book review’s clothing from an Australian blogger, Tim O’Neill. O’Neill calls himself a “wry, dry, rather sarcastic, eccentric, silly, rather arrogant Irish-Australian atheist bastard,” so you would think we would get along like a house on fire. Sadly, no. As George Bernard Shaw pointed out long ago, if you roast an Irishman on the spit, you can always get another Irishman to turn the crank…

True confession time: O’Neill hasn’t impressed me to date; I typically have run across him in the comment threads of atheist blogs, usually snarking around and defending himself against charges of being an abrasive douchebag. He often acts as if he’s spearheading a one-man quest for rationality and can’t understand why everyone else doesn’t listen to him. He also gets frequently carried away with his need to: A) be right all the time, even when he’s wrong; and B) castigate the errors of lesser beings with unusually high levels of bitchiness. For instance, he used to regularly show up on Richard Carrier’s blog doing his usual pissy, nitpicking schtick until of course he took it too far and Carrier actually caught him in a lie, which seems to have put an end to his antics on that blog. So in a nutshell, when I run across O’Neill nowadays, my first thought is almost always: what IS this guy’s fucking problem?

O’Neilled: Tons of Mistakes that Show Tim O’Neill Never Investigated Nailed at All

It seems to boil down to a weirdly obsessive vendetta against proponents of the Jesus Myth theory. This is the first of several vindictive straw-man generalizations that permeates O’Neill’s screed. Now, I’m the first to agree with O’Neill that there are plenty of crackpot alternative Jesus theories being promoted in truly terrible half-baked books by amateurs (Kersey Graves’ The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors, Luigi Cascioli’s The Case against Jesus, Joseph Atwill’s Caesar’s Messiah, and Baigent/Leigh/Lincoln’s infamous Holy Blood, Holy Grail all spring to mind, and there are many more); in that respect we’re both on the same page. In fact, if anything, I dislike them even more than he does; the crackpots just make the job of legitimate Mythicists harder. But for O’Neill to lump together the crank theories with the serious scholarship being done by Doherty, Price, Carrier, et al. is just asinine.

When I first read O’Neill’s review of Nailed, I found it curious that he describes me as an atheist activist on the board of SF Atheists and “the founder of an atheist film festival,” all true enough – but which conveniently ignores any of my relevant credentials, like my degree in history, my association with CSER (The Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion), or that I’ve been specifically researching the Historical Jesus question for more than ten years. And I knew there was something seriously flawed when he (rightly) mentioned that Nailed has certainly received high praise from prominent figures – but then identified Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price (who he misnames “R.G. Price”) as “atheist activists, amateurs and hobbyists.”

Atheist activists, amateurs and hobbyists? Price and Carrier both have relevant PhDs, both are multiply-published authors, academics, philosophers and biblical scholars, have been active on the scene for well over a decade, and are major contributors to some of the most important and ground-breaking biblical publications in recent years. Dr. Price is a professor of biblical criticism, a member of the Society of Biblical Literature as well as the Jesus Seminar, CSER, and edited the Journal of Higher Criticism. Dr. Carrier is the former head of the Secular web, and has repeatedly been recognized as one of the most influential atheist thinkers on the planet today. Tim O’Neill, I know Richard Carrier. Richard Carrier is a friend of mine. And you, sir, are no Richard Carrier.

O’Neill tries to stigmatize Nailed and Doherty’s The Jesus Puzzle and “most Myther books” for being “self-published” books – which only shows how little he knows about the realities of the publishing world today. Again, I do have sympathy for his suspicions (or I would, if he wasn’t being such a douche); but the truth is self-publishing isn’t just for vanity presses any more, as he’ll find out if he ever decides to go from being a blog gadfly and actually make the effort to publish something. Three different publishers were interested in publishing Nailed, but the decision to self-publish just made more sense financially. And oh yes, the manuscript was peer reviewed, beta-read, edited, line-proofed, corrected, formatted and re-formatted (as he might have known just by reading the 6 pages of acknowledgements!) His constant little jabs at denigration just come off as a mix of jealousy and desire for self-promotion.

Yet another grossly uninformed allegation is his ridiculous assertion that all “Mythers” are just out to push an atheist agenda, so they start with their conclusion, and spin half-baked ad hoc theories purely out of political motivations, like creationists. This would be laughable if it wasn’t so insulting and patronizing. My atheist activism has absolutely nothing to do with whether Jesus was real or not. I don’t need for there to have been a mythical Jesus; the bible fails on its own just fine with or without a genuine founder from Nazareth.

The truth is something O’Neill can’t seem to fathom: I never set about to be a “Myther” – in fact, it was quite the opposite. Like the overwhelming majority of atheists, twelve years ago it had never even occurred to me there might never have been a historical Jesus. Then one day (after reading Ken Smith’s brilliant Ken’s Guide to the Bible) I became curious to find out what Jesus really said and did, and how much was just legendary accretion. Once I began to look into the sorry state of the evidence for Jesus, I realized (as have so many others before me) that something is seriously flawed with the notion of a “Historical Jesus.”

Honestly, I get that the Myth Theory is still a hard sell for many, so I have sympathy for anyone with initial skepticism. We should be skeptical, especially of books by non-specialists in the field, like mine. And at the end of the day, it’s no skin off my nose if anyone else accepts it or not. I’m not dogmatic about it. I’m not a masochist or a contrarian. I defend the Jesus Myth theory for just one simple reason: I am sincerely convinced that it’s right. I’m certainly willing to reject it if it turns out to be wrong; indeed, there have been many supporting arguments and lines of evidence that I have discarded because they did turn out to be wrong. As I say in the book, if I’m wrong, I want to know. But so far, after more than a decade of personally subjecting the Jesus Myth explanation to the crucible time and again, I’m more convinced than ever that it remains the best answer to the problem.

Maybe if O’Neill could manage to understand that Mythicists like me actually have reasons for our position, and that the dominant historical opinion on Jesus is seriously flawed, we could have an actual discussion. But he doesn’t seem interested in real conversation; he wants a chew toy. In fact, I can’t shake the feeling that all O’Neill really craves is notoriety – to be the Perez Hilton of atheism.

O’Neill’s False “Fitzgerald’s False Dichotomy”

On to the specifics. Over and over, O’Neill gets his facts wrong; makes pronouncements with a Bill O’Reillyesque voice of authority when he clearly doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about; twists my actual points into a ridiculous straw man, or, as we can see here, just makes things up that only exist in his head. Here’s O’Neill, complaining about how “I frame the debate”:

“So from the start Fitzgerald sets up an artificial dichotomy, with conservative apologists defending a traditional orthodox Jesus on one hand and brave “critics who (dispute) Christian claims” who don’t believe in any Jesus at all on the other. And nothing in between. This is nonsense, because it ignores a vast middle ground of scholars – liberal Christian, Jewish, atheist and agnostic – who definitely “dispute Christian claims” but who also conclude that there was a human, Jewish, historical First Century preacher as the point of origin for the later stories of “Jesus Christ”.”

I agree: That is nonsense, and this nonsensical “dichotomy” is O’Neill’s own creation, not mine. As I explicitly say in the first chapter (and repeat on the back of the book) the evidence has been gathered from all across the theological spectrum. What’s more, I frequently cite the work of the “middle ground of scholars” throughout the book -including several of the ones he claims I’m ignoring – by name. And whenever possible, I point out when I am presenting information that represents the majority opinion of all scholars. So where is O’Neill coming up with this “dichotomy” of his? The truth is, even if the ultimate conclusion in Nailed seems radical, the facts that support it are often considered not radical at all by the majority of Biblical scholars – many have been accepted as the majority opinion for centuries.

But that’s not the Real Jesus!

So much of what I argue should not sound controversial. O’Neill admits as much when he dismisses Myth No. 1 (“The idea that Jesus was a myth is ridiculous!”) as “not really controversial” and that:

“After all, no-one except a fundamentalist apologist would pretend that the evidence about Jesus is not ambiguous and often difficult to interpret with any certainty, and that includes the evidence for his existence.”

He and I are in almost in perfect agreement here. What O’Neill doesn’t seem to grasp is that Nailed was written to highlight and address those very difficulties. Instead, he declares I’m confused and can’t keep the “Jesus of Faith” straight from the “Historical Jesus.” Is he kidding? Are there no Christians in Australia? Either O’Neill forgets that nearly one third of the planet (not just “fundamentalist apologists”!) believes in the Jesus as presented in the Gospels; or to him, the fact matters not at all. Worse, he somehow manages to think that addressing the issue of that Jesus’ historicity is a failing of the book. Unbelievable.

To O’Neill’s mind, none of that mere Christianity is of any interest. He constantly sniffs that the real Jesus remains untouched by the book – the Historical Jesus that he claims all real scholars accept: the “Jewish preacher (that was) the point of origin for the Jesus story simply because that makes the most sense of all the evidence.” First of all, as one might have guessed from the subtitle, or heard me say repeatedly in the book, Nailed was written to debunk the Christian myths that prop up the official story of Jesus. So perhaps O’Neill shouldn’t be too surprised that the main focus of the book is exactly that: the Jesus of rank-and-file Christianity.

And still, that’s not to say I don’t have anything to weigh in on the Historical Jesus! O’Neill should know that the “Historical Jesus” he touts as being the real Jesus is on no firmer evidentiary ground than the “Jesus of Faith,” something I do focus on in my upcoming book Jesus: Mything in Action. In fact, there is no single “Historical Jesus.” There are scads of various hypothetical and contradictory historical “reconstructions” of him – and none of them based on anything remotely like what an objective observer would consider reliable evidence. This wide variety of secular Jesuses and the problematic historical sources for all of them are symptomatic of the very predicament that prompted me to write Nailed in the first place. But more on that in my guest post on Freethought Blog, “Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up?”

Who are the Biblical Historians?

Surprisingly, O’Neill takes objection when I point out something I didn’t expect anyone to have an issue with: that even though the majority of Biblical historians reject the idea that Jesus never existed, the majority of Biblical historians have always been Christian preachers, so what else could we expect them to say? O’Neill insists many scholars may well be Christians and allows that a tiny few (but not many) may be preachers, but “a great many” are definitely not.

I’d be willing to grant him that there are probably more non-Christian biblical scholars today than ever before, but that doesn’t change the fact that from the beginning, biblical studies have always been dominated by Christian clergy of various denominations – and remain so. One simply has to flip through a standard history of biblical studies, or take a roll call of the Society of Biblical Literature any time since its founding in 1880 to quickly see that not only do they freely admit that the entire field was originally an apologetic endeavor, but there has scarcely been a member who was not also a pastor, priest or rabbi.

Even in secular circles today, it is difficult to find a biblical scholar who does not come out of a religious background – even those without a divinity degree. Rabbi Jon D. Levensen, one of today’s most prominent Jewish biblical scholars, notes “It is a rare scholar in the field whose past does not include an intense Christian or Jewish commitment.” (The Hebrew Bible: The Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies, Westminster John Knox Press, 1993, p. 30)

What’s more, as religious scholar Timothy Fitzgerald (no relation) notes in The Ideology of Religious Studies (Oxford University Press, 2000), even among former believers, theological assumptions are pervasive: “even in the work of scholars who are explicitly non-theological, half-disguised theological presuppositions persistently distort the analytical pitch.” (p. 6-7) Again, see “Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up?” for a deeper examination of these fundamental issues.

Myth No. 2: Jesus Christ – Superstar?

Myth No. 2 (“Jesus was wildly famous – but there was no reason for contemporary historians to notice him … “) looks at the back-pedaling apologists do when confronted with the total lack of contemporary historical corroboration for the events presented in the Gospels. Needless to say, O’Neill misses the entire point and asks why we should expect anyone at the time would have noticed Jesus – since to O’Neill’s thinking, the Jesus depicted in the Gospels – and the spectacular events surrounding him – aren’t even worth discussing, and in his judgment, the “real” Jesus was, in his words, “pretty small fry.” As he puts it:

“Even if we take their accounts at face value, a chanting crowd greeting his entrance to Jerusalem, a trial that no-one witnessed and a run-of-the-mill execution are hardly big news.”

Except of course, if we actually take the gospels at face value, we get considerable more than that: political scandals; a massacre; an empire-wide census and taxation; Heavenly hosts of angels and a miraculous star announcing his birth; prophets declaring him the new messiah; the holy spirit descending from heaven upon him while the voice of God announces Jesus is his son; multitudes following Jesus and spreading news of his teaching and miracles throughout Judea, the Galilee, and beyond the Jordan as far as Syria and the Decapolis; his healing members of the households of the highest ranks of society, including temple leaders, Roman centurions, and royal officials; the prophets Moses and Elijah appear from heaven to speak with him; the entire city of Jerusalem acclaiming Jesus as the messiah, multiple (and illegal) trials before the entire Sanhedrin and many onlookers, the Tetrarch Herod Antipas and his war council, and the Roman governor, who engages with a huge crowd wildly clamoring for Jesus’ death before releasing a notorious rebel; crowds attending his scourging, his humiliating march up to Golgotha, listening to him give a speech, and his long, excruciating execution; followed by hours of supernatural darkness covering “all the land,” two major earthquakes in Jerusalem, the miraculous tearing of the temple curtain, a mass resurrection of famous saints who emerge from their supernaturally-opened graves en masse and wander the streets of Jerusalem, “appearing to many,” Jesus’ return from the grave and multiple appearances to his followers (for a day, or a week, or forty days, depending on who’s telling the story) before ascending to Heaven in front of many witnesses.

O’Neill thinks it’s naive to believe most of these spectacular events happened – Well, good on you, Tim! Neither do we – that’s the entire point. I agree it’s naive to believe the events in the gospels literally happened – but it doesn’t change the fact that over 2.1 billion people do, so it’s hardly a waste of time pointing out how ridiculous it is that there is no corroboration in the historical record for any of these spectacular occurrences. But with his 20-20 tunnel vision, all he can see is how none of this applies to his “historical Jesus.” And he isn’t even right about that.

When I provided the evidence that there indeed were contemporary commentators – along with the reasons we could expect each of them to discuss Jesus – O’Neill grumbles “Fitzgerald labours mightily to detail all the writers who he claims “should” have mentioned Jesus.” (Why is it if I don’t go into exhaustive detail on one point I’m either being sloppy or making shit up, but when I do take the trouble to provide the information, I’m suddenly “laboring mightily”? You can’t win with this guy – he has all the gusto of a Fox News pundit ragging on Obama) Despite it being right there on paper, O’Neill not only denies it – he goes on to inadvertently demonstrates my point. His Shrillness continues:

“Yet Fitzgerald again claims that these writers do mention other figures similar to Jesus. “In many cases”, he claims, “these same writers have much to say about other much less interesting messiahs – but not Jesus” (p.42) In “many cases”? Which cases? Fitzgerald does not say. And other messiahs are mentioned? Which ones, where and by who? Again, despite this being a key point that should potentially back up and substantiate his creaking argument, he never bothers to tell the reader. The reason is simple – what Fitzgerald is saying here is absolute nonsense.”

Incidentally, perhaps this is a good time to mention the real reason I didn’t list them all out: Nailed was distilled down from a manuscript that was originally not 250 pages, but nearly a whopping 700 pages. So in fact, there’s a lot of information that I don’t mention, and many hard choices I had to make about what to include and what to leave out in a book that’s intended to be a reader-friendly intro to the subject… Just one other hard reality O’Neill will have to face if he ever becomes an author himself. As I cautioned in Ch. 1 (not the only caution of mine that O’Neill ignores…) the book is an all-too-brief thumbnail sketch.

Annnnyway, here’s where O’Neill makes my point for me. He proceeds to name a few would-be messiahs from the first century: Athronges (Athronges the Shepherd); the unnamed Samaritan Taheb/messiah; Theudas (also known as Theudas the Magician) who is mentioned anachronistically in the book of Acts; and “the Egyptian” another failed Jewish messiah also name-dropped by Luke. (Incidentally, he was probably called “The Egyptian” not because he was from Egypt, but to evoke Moses). In actuality, as I alluded to in the section he quoted, there are many more loser messiahs and messiah-like figures that he could also have brought up: Simon of Peraea, Judas of Galilee, John the Baptist, Simon Magus/Simon of Gitta, Yeshua ben Hananiah, Jonathan the Weaver, Apollonius of Tyana, Carabbas, Simon bar-Giora and still more. (And if you’re interested, I do go into more detail on many of them in “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?”)

None of these failed messiahs, prophets and rabble-rousers succeeded anywhere near as well as our Jesus of Nazareth. But every one of these loser messiahs did beat Jesus on one crucial matter: all of them managed to leave a trace in the contemporary historical record – so why couldn’t Jesus? If O’Neill is right, the real Jesus was just “small fry” and his exploits and supposedly radical new teachings were ignored by history for his entire life – actually, for over a century. But if that’s so, O’Neill (or rather, those historians whom he’s parroting) can’t explain what for me is the central paradox of the Historical Jesus: Either: he did and said all these amazing, earthshaking things – and no one noticed. Or: he was just one more failed messiah of the early first century – and yet after his death, a fringe cult springs up, scattered all across the Roman Empire from Spain to the Egyptian Desert to Asia Minor, made up of bickering house churches that can’t agree about the most fundamental basics of his life and teachings. This oft-encountered “Stealth Messiah” approach to the problem simply doesn’t hold up.

By the way, O’Neill is also wrong when he weirdly (and irrelevantly) claims we have no contemporary sources for Hannibal – though (to his credit) he thanks a commenter for correcting his error by pointing out that we do have a fragment from Book IV of Sosylus’ The Deeds Of Hannibal - even if he does downplays the two passages as “a tiny fragment” that “seems to contain a few lines” – in fact, as you can see here, it’s a bit more than that; two paragraphs with just over a dozen lines. But besides that, O’Neill is unaware that we do have at least one complete and contemporary account of Hannibal in book three of Polybius of Megalopolis’ The Histories, where he not only discusses Hannibal at great length, he also mentions in passing the other authors who “who have dealt with Hannibal and his times” (3.6.1).

Myth no. 3: Forging Josephus

Myth No. 3 is where O’Neill really dials up his assholedom to 11. This chapter focuses on ancient historian Flavius Josephus and two disputed passages in his writing, the Testimonium Flavianum and the “James Reference,” both which are claimed to be references to Jesus. O’Neill starts out by begging the question, baldly asserting “that Josephus does mention Jesus – twice.” However, the Testimonium is so blatantly a forgery no scholars today still dispute the fact; the only debate now is how much of it is forged. Even O’Neill accepts that at least some of it is not original to Josephus and was added by Christian scribes later. Of course, as Jeffrey Jay Lowder has pointed out, the very fact that there has been any tampering with the text at all makes the entire passage suspect.

But not to O’Neill. He cannot conceive that my filthy Myther comrades or I honestly dispute the two passages; instead he gleefully and repeatedly paints us as wringing our hands in anxiety, desperate to say anything or pull any underhanded tactic just to make the damning text go away so we can wallow in our lies. Charming.

O’Neill rightly notes that the majority of scholars accept the passage as at least partially authentic, but what he fails to add (if he even realizes) is that the “Partially Authentic,” or Reconstuctionist camp is the largest camp simply because scholarly opinion is so divided over the extent of tampering; it is a very large tent with lots of room for disagreement – and there is ferocious disagreement. And there are many scholars in that significant (and I think, correct) minority who are convinced it is a complete forgery.

O’Neill, repeating a dreadfully tired old line from the Christian apologists he despises, adds “once the more obvious interpolated phrases are removed, the passage reads precisely like what Josephus would be expected to write and also uses characteristic language found elsewhere in his works.” This would all be very convenient – just take out all the incriminating parts and then it all works fine! But there are several things he and the apologists get wrong here. To be begin with, there is no consensus on what is “obviously interpolated;” the permutations of what’s considered genuine and suspicious differs from theorist to theorist). Secondly, Josephan scholars Steve Mason and Ken Olson have both pointed out that the passage does not use Josephus’ characteristic language. In fact, its non-Josephan vocabulary and misuse of terms are just two of several other strong indications that the entire passage is not just a partial, but a total forgery. As I note in Nailed, (pp. 52-54) here are a few (not all) of the others:

“Still another is that it barely relates to the rest of the chapter. The following paragraph starts by saying “About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder.” Another sad calamity? But what sad calamity? Josephus has just presented a commercial for Jesus, not a sad calamity! This reference skips over the Testimonium entirely and points to the previous section. That passage, where Pilate sets his soldiers loose to massacre a large crowd of Jews in Jerusalem, certainly fits the bill as a sad calamity, but no versions of the Testimonium do, “reconstructed” or not.

Many commentators, including Doherty, G. A. Wells and Peter Kirby, have noted that without the Testimonium passage, the continuity between the passages flanking it flows seamlessly into each other. This fact alone is a tremendous indication that the passage is 100% entirely fraudulent.

Perhaps the major giveaway is that this passage does not appear until the 4th century. For the first 300 years of its existence, there is no mention of the Testimonium anywhere. This couldn’t have been simply because no one happened to read it; Josephus’ histories were immensely popular and pored over by scholars. For centuries his works were more widely read in Europe than any book other than the Bible. According to Josephus scholar Michael Hardwick in Josephus as an Historical Source in Patristic Literature through Eusebius, more than a dozen early Christian writers, including Justin Martyr, Theophilus Antiochenus, Melito of Sardis, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Pseudo-Justin, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Methodius and Lactantius, are known to have read and commented on the works of Josephus.

Origen in particular relied extensively on him; his own writings are filled with references to Josephus. But it is obvious Origen had never heard of the Testimonium. When his skeptical Roman opponent Celsus asks what miracles Jesus performed, Origen answers that Jesus‘ life was indeed full of striking and miraculous events, “but from what other source can we can furnish an answer than from the Gospel narratives?” (Contra Celsum, 2:33) In the same book (1.47), Origen even quotes from Antiquities of the Jews in order to prove the historical existence of John the Baptist, then adds that Josephus didn’t believe in Jesus, and criticizes Josephus for failing to mention Jesus in that book!

And no one else seems to have heard of the Testimonium for 300 years, either – it is never quoted until the 4th century, when the notorious Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea begins quoting it repeatedly.”

And where did Eusebius get his copy of Antiquities of the Jews? From Origen – who had never heard of the passage! There’s simply no way around it: the Testimonium is 100% pure forgery, and it stretches belief that anyone but Eusebius is the forger.

But what about the Arabic Evidence?

O’Neill thinks he’s pulling out his trump card when he dredges up the Arab version of the Testimonium discovered by Israeli scholar Schlomo Pines, and the medieval Syriac Testimonium, which he claims preserve an original, uninterpolated Testimonium. He crows “So how does Fitzgerald deal with the Arabic and Syriac evidence? Well, he doesn’t. He is either ignorant of it or he conveniently ignores it.”

Well, he’s half right. I am quite aware of, and did indeed ignore the Arabic and Syriac “evidence” – just as I ignored the Slovanic Additions “evidence” in the Russian and Rumanian manuscripts. Why? Because despite sensationalistic claims like O’Neill’s, none of them add anything to the debate. Nor is he (or the sources he’s relying on) aware that several years ago historian Alice Whealey conclusively proved both these claims wrong.

But since we’re here, let’s go down this rabbit hole:

The Arabic version of the Testimonium is indeed a paraphrase, preserved in the world history of a tenth-century Arab Christian, Melkite Bishop Agapius of Hierapolis, whose history is pithily entitled Kitab Al-Unwan Al-Mukallal Bi-Fadail Al- Hikma Al-Mutawwaj Bi-Anwa Al-Falsafa Al-Manduh Bi-Haqaq Al-Marifa, or: The Book of History Guided by All the Virtues of Wisdom, Crowned with Various Philosophies and Blessed by the Truth of Knowledge.

O’Neill neglects to mention (or simply doesn’t know) that the late Prof. Pines himself cautioned against claiming that the Arabic text represents Josephus’ original version. Peter Kirby noted we can’t be sure Agapius was even quoting straight from a manuscript at all (he doesn’t even get the title of Josephus’ book correct, which suggests that he was working from memory, which would also explain any differences with the Greek version) And even if he was, it is certainly very late and corrupted, and thus practically worthless. What’s more, Pines freely acknowledged that there were several other explanations for the text; he personally believed that Agapius acquired his subject matter from texts in the care of – surprise! Eusebius, our prime suspect for forging the Testimonium in the first place! (see Gaalyahu Cornfield, The Historical Jesus: A Scholarly View of the Man and his World, Macmillan, 1982, p. 190) See where this is going…?

The medieval Syriac version of the Testimonium cited by Michael the Syrian in his World Chronicle traces back to some Syriac Christian; historians believe it is probably the seventh century James of Edessa. It reads differently from the Greek: Instead of “He was the Christ,” it reads “He was believed to be the Christ,” identical wording of a text of the Testimonium that Jerome possessed. The only plausible conclusion is that both had access to a Greek version of the Testimonium containing that variant. None of which prevented Eusebius from still being the original source for the Greek variant behind both Jerome’s late 4th century text (itself close to a century after the Testimonium first appears in Eusebius’ writings!) or the even later Syriac one.

So this was already the sorry state of evidence for both these writings before 2008, when Josephan scholar Alice Whealey made her rather conclusive case (see Alice Whealey, “The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic,” New Testament Studies 54.4 (2008) pp. 573-90) that even the once-much-touted Arabic version of the Testimonium actually also derives from… you guessed it – Eusebius, by way of an intermediary Syriac version, and so long story short, neither of these medieval Arabic or Syriac texts came from Josephus. Which is why I didn’t include any of this wild goose chase in Nailed. Which, if O’Neill really kept up with Josephan studies as much as he’d like us all to think, he should have known all along…

BTW, O’Neill also didn’t mention – sorry, I mean he is either ignorant of it or he conveniently ignores – the “evidence” of the so-called Slavonic Additions, but as long as we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, we might as well drag in the beefed-up, blatantly counterfeit, Old Russian Testimonium found in a few fifteenth-century Russian and Rumanian versions of The Jewish War – That’s right, The Jewish War, not Antiquities – the forger didn’t even put it in the right book! The prevailing view is that it was added in about the 10th or 11th century, and no historians today defend its authenticity.

Origen-al Sin

O’Neill turns on the charm again:

“Not content with ignoring inconvenient key counter-evidence, Fitzgerald is also happy to simply make things up. He talks about how the Second Century Christian apologist Origen does not mention the Antiquities XVII.3.4 reference to Jesus (which is true, but not surprising -Note from Dave: Really?) and then claims “Origen even quotes from Antiquities of the Jews in order to prove the historical existence of John the Baptist, then adds that Josephus didn’t believe in Jesus, and criticises him for failing to mention Jesus in that book!” (p. 53) Which might sound like a good argument to anyone who does not bother to check self-published author’s citations. But those who do will turn to Origen’s Contra Celsum I.4 and find the following:

Now this writer [Josephus], although not believing in Jesus as the Messiah, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless-being, although against his will, not far from the truth-that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was “the brother of that Jesus who was called Messiah”,–the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice.

So Origen does not say Josephus “didn’t believe in Jesus”, just that he did not believe Jesus was the Messiah (which supports the Arabic and Syriac evidence on the pre-interpolation version of Antiquities XVII.3.4) And far from criticising Josephus “for failing to mention Jesus in that book”, Origen actually quotes Josephus directly doing exactly that – the phrase “αδελφος Ιησου του λεγομενου Χριστου” (the brother of that Jesus who was called Messiah”) is word for word the phrase used by Josephus in his other mention of Jesus, found at Antiquities XX.9.1. And he does not refer to and quote Josephus mentioning Jesus just in Contra Celsum I.4, but he also does so twice more: in Contra Celsum II:13 and in Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei X.17. It is hard to say if this nonsense claim of Fitzgerald’s is mere incompetence or simply a lie. I will be charitable and put it down to another of this amateur’s bungles.”

First, I must confess that I never meant to imply that Origen said Josephus “didn’t believe in Jesus” in the sense of Jesus not existing – I certainly don’t think that’s the case. That was an unfortunate and very poorly tempered sentence on my part; and painful as it is to give such a douche a bone, I have to say I totally agree with O’Neill’s criticism of it. Origen is chiding Josephus here for being a Jew, not for denying Jesus’ historicity. In fact, Josephus shows no sign of ever having even heard of Jesus at all, which is the reason Eusebius inserted his forged Testimonium into Antiquities in the first place.

But on every other point here, O’Neill is dead wrong – he (or more likely, whoever his unacknowledged source is) is in fact, demonstrating that the opposite is true. To begin with, how can O’Neill deny that Origen is not doing exactly what I said he did: criticizing Josephus for not mentioning Jesus? Read it again – it’s right there in black and white:

“… he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities…”

It should also be noted that the quotation marks in the Contra Celsum passage above are not original to the text; in Origen’s time of course there was no such punctuation mark. They have been inserted there to give the impression that Origen is giving a direct quote here. But Origen is not quoting Josephus; not here and not in any of his other passages where O’Neill claims he does.

In fact, turnabout is fair play – let’s look at what these passages say. Here the first passage in question, Book 20, Chapter 9 of Antiquities of the Jews. Here, Josephus is describing the antics of a very unpopular high priest in Jerusalem, the unfortunately named Ananus ben Ananus. O’Neill claims Origen is quoting Josephus “word for word” here, and he is talking out of his ass. Origen does not even claim to be quoting Josephus here – and he isn’t. See for yourself:

“And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity (to exercise his authority). Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, (or, some of his companions); and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered hem to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king (Agrippa), desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.”

As you can see, Josephus nowhere calls this James “James the Just,” nor blames the destruction of Jerusalem on his death, nor is he even talking about the destruction of Jerusalem here. Most importantly for our purposes here, neither, as O’Neill insists, does he use the phrase “(Iakôbou tou Dikaiou hos ên) adelphos Iêsou tou legomenou Christou” – “James the Just, who was a brother of that Jesus who was called Messiah.” The line in question is actually “ton adelphon Iêsou tou legomenou Christou Iakôbos onoma autôi”which means “the brother of Jesus (who was called Christ), the name for whom was James.” In fact, Josephus’ somewhat tortured syntax here is a clue, but let’s continue:

Further along in Contra Celsum (2:13) Origen uses the exact same line as before:

“Titus destroyed Jerusalem, on account, as Josephus wrote, of James the Just, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, but in reality, as the truth makes clear, on account of Jesus Christ the Son of God.”

Origen claims Josephus wrote this, but not where – and again, he’s wrong; Josephus never wrote any such thing. And we get that exact same line in Origen’s third and final alleged Josephan quote, his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew:

“And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the Antiquities of the Jews in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered such great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ. And the amazing thing is that although he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great, and he says that the people thought that they had suffered these things because of James.”

So in short, in absolutely none of these cases is Origen quoting from Josephus.

In fact, as Richard Carrier has pointed out, the phrase found in Josephus has a peculiar and distinctive idiom (“the name for whom was James”) never found in Origen’s writings, so it’s even more apparent that Origen is not giving a direct quote in any of his writings. Incidentally, I am indebted to my friend Dr. Carrier for all the analysis of the Greek in this section of Nailed. For a thorough examination of the evidence that conclusively demonstrates the James Reference is an accidental interpolation or scribal emendation and that that passage was never originally about Jesus Christ but Jesus ben Damneus (The Jesus who is actually mentioned in the passage, and fits the context!), see his forthcoming paper “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200” in the Journal of Early Christian Studies 20.4 (coming Winter 2012)

James Reference, part II

At the risk of beating a dead horse, there’s still more in this small section that he has gotten horribly, horribly wrong. I know that O’Neill has an undue amount of ego invested in poo-pooing this book, but, please believe me when I tell you I’m honestly baffled that any reasonably bright, reasonably objective person can look at all the problematic features of the James Reference and still fail to find the solutions offered in this chapter thoroughly convincing. And it feels like in his withered little heart, O’Neill knows he’s in the wrong on this issue and is coming a bit unglued. Let’s watch.

“This second reference to Jesus is difficult for Mythers to deal with. Dismissing it as another interpolation does not work, since a Christian interpolator in a later century is hardly going to invent something as significant as the deposition of the High Priest just to slip in this passing reference to Jesus which, unlike the interpolated elements in the Antiquities XVII.3.4 passage, makes no Christian claims about Jesus.“

Hmmm… it can’t be a deliberate interpolation… why does all that sound familiar? Oh yes, it’s because that’s exactly what I say on p. 58! He piles on to this bad start, and that’s when it really gets fascinating – look what O’Neill does in this section: It’s a rhetorical hot mess: He flails away, his snarky rhetoric goes into high gear, substituting pissiness for facts with lines like: “But Fitzgerald falls back on one of the several gambits Mythers use to get their argument off this awkward and pointy hook;” or “While he declares this ingenious solution to his problem to be ‘the only explanation that makes sense,’ it is actually highly flawed,” or “The clumsy idea that Fitzgerald proposes is highly awkward in all respects.”

But when it’s time to back up all his smack talk with facts, his objections are piddling, goofy and random (“But this does not explain why Josephus would identify one son (James) by reference to his brother and the other (Jesus) by reference to their father”). Nor does he provide any evidence, only some truly ignorant statements like “This was in the mid-Third Century and long before Christians were in any position to be ‘tacking on’ anything to copies of Josephus.” He also puts on heavy-duty blinders, as when he declares:

“More importantly, neither Carrier nor Fitzgerald explain why an interpolator would “tack on” this reference to their Jesus.”

Except, of course, that we do explain, at length, for a considerable portion of this chapter (see pp. 59-60) that it is an accidental interpolation; a fact that eludes O’Neill. In fact, he seems so completely clueless to the fact, you have to wonder was he still reading by this point at all, or just skimming? Or is he taking some “La-la-la I can’t hear you” approach and hoping no one would notice? He continues to ramble on autopilot, arguing to no one over the same non-existent point before declaring victory. Truly bizarre behavior, an almost Donald Trumpian level of masturbatory ego-trip.

He really needs to read the whole section again – he simply ignores the answers the book already provides to his own rhetorical questions. Besides that, his “objections” are ludicrous, and his “explanations” explain none of the problems of the passage: Why does Origen say elsewhere that there are no references to Jesus outside the gospel (see p. 53 of Nailed – already cited here in the section for Myth No. 3) if he thought Josephus mentioned him here (or in the Testimonium, for that matter)? Why does he – or any of the more than a dozen other early church fathers that relied heavily on Josephus for three hundred years (again, see p. 53 of Nailed) – never discuss this as a witness to Christ in all their citations of Josephus? Why do none of the details of the death of this James match the details we have from any other account of the death of James the Just?

And why didn’t Luke know of this account and include it in the New Testament book of Acts? Why would the Jews be in an uproar over the death of a Christian leader when Christians are supposed to be a hated, if not outright illegal, sect at this time? Why would he use the term “Christ” here – a term he studiously avoids using in reference to all other messianic figures he discusses in the rest of his writings? And why would he do so without explaining what it meant to his pagan Roman audience? The questions just go on and on. And O’Neill & Co. have no answer for any of them.

But all of these serious problems and more suddenly make perfect sense if the passage was originally really about Jesus, the son of Damneus – the Jesus who is actually being discussed in the passage – and the text was accidentally “corrected” to read “who was called Christ” instead. O’Neill and those who insist otherwise are left wrestling with a tremendous number of baffling unanswered questions instead.

O’Neill has once again inadvertently proved the opposite of what he set out to prove. In the immortal words of O’Neill: “it is hard to say if this nonsense claim is mere incompetence or simply a lie. I will be charitable and put it down to another of his bungles.”

And on a personal level, I have to say it’s frustrating when naysayers like O’Neill seem perfectly oblivious to the real reason these two obviously doctored passages in Josephus are defended so stridently by most biblical historians: because without this pair of long-disputed, deeply problematic snippets, there is literally nothing else in the entire first century to corroborate the Gospels. The force of their objection has always been based on theological imperatives, not evidential strength.

Myths 4 through 7: Phoning it in

After this confused rant, O’Neill runs out of steam, and can barely work enough negativity to dismiss the next four chapters as “mere padding” with, yes, yet another tiresome pronouncement that none of this applies to the real Jesus. Apparently, in that part of Australia called Tim O’Neill Land, the fact that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, present wildly varying depictions of Jesus, are riddled with historical and archaeological errors, and that we have not a shred of physical evidence for Jesus, are of interest to “absolutely no-one except the most clueless of Biblical literalists or naive traditional Christians.” Don’t you feel bad for not being as smart as Tim O’Neill? You should.

He does work up enough steam for one more jab:

“Though there are some howlers in it that, yet again, shows that Fitzgerald is an amateur who really needed an informed editor. At one point he writes:

Matthew has Jesus making a pun where he tells Peter “upon this rock I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18). Though if this had happened in reality, Peter would have scratched his head and asked, “Say Jesus – what’s a church?” since churches hadn’t been invented yet, and wouldn’t be developed until many decades later. (p. 70)

The word translated as “church” in most English editions is ἐκκλησίαν and it simply means “assembly, gathering, all of a given group”, so it would be very odd for Peter to have “scratched his head” at what would have been a perfectly sensible and clear statement. Personally, I do not happen to believe Jesus said this at all and it seems this was something put in his mouth later by the writer of Matthew. But the naivete of Fitzgerald’s English-based argument is indicative of his weak grasp of the material.”

“English-based argument?” Are you kidding me? The Historian in me is simply annoyed, but my inner Linguist is deeply offended. Once again, O’Neill misses the point because his pre-occupied knee-jerk snark reaction has him looking for mistakes that aren’t there. Of course I know the Greek for church is ekklêsía. But a statement like “upon this rock I will build my ekklêsía” is most definitely not “a perfectly sensible and clear statement” for an early first century Jew. For them, ekklêsía weren’t something that was built upon; as he needlessly points out, the word simply meant a gathering, actually a “duly summoned assembly”. No one at the time would have understood it in the context given here by the much-later author of Matthew, which is why it’s in the section on anachronisms in the first place. Curb your dog already.

Myth No. 8: Paul’s Jesus

By Myth No. 8, O’Neill has given up and just falls back on the same tired old arguments that prompted me to write Nailed in the first place. He starts with the understatement that: “Paul does not actually say much about Jesus’ life and preaching.” In fact, it’s not just Paul – it’s the entire first generation of Christian writers. And it’s not that that he doesn’t say that much; he has nothing to say about his Risen Christ that seems to clearly refer to a life on earth, and again and again shows strange lapses about Jesus’ life, teachings, miracles, family, apostles, and the events of his ministry. Though he spends plenty of time in his letters having to remind his flock what he has taught them; he never bothers to tell them about what Jesus taught or did – or explain why he disagrees with the men who are supposedly Jesus’ family and disciples! Mythicists didn’t invent the “Silence of Paul” – that has puzzled and troubled biblical scholars for centuries.

Personally, I don’t know for certain if Paul himself believed in a purely spiritual Christ (along the lines of the savior in the original Ascension of Isaiah, who descends through successive layers of heavens by dying and rising again in each one) as Earl Doherty argues convincingly; or if Paul thought Jesus was on earth in some unspecified time in the past as a covert messiah, who “made of himself no reputation” (Phillip.2:7) and was unwittingly crucified by demons. But no matter how you slice it, it’s very obvious that Paul’s Christ is in stark contrast to the Jesus(es) in the Gospels – see pp. 129 -132 in Nailed for more details on those many differences.

And for a guy who keeps trying to nail me on linguistics points, O’Neill makes his share of blunders here, such as when he claims Paul states Jesus was executed by “earthly rulers” in 1 Cor. 2:8. In fact, the word used in that verse is not exsousia (εξουσια), the word the New Testament prefers to use when referring to earthly authorities like the Roman overlords or the temple leaders. It is archôn (ἅρχων; plural, ἅρχοντες, archontes); the same word for “rulers, powers” that we see in verses like Ephesians 2:2:

“You once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience…”

As any Sunday School teacher can tell you, “The prince of the power of the air” (ton archonta tēs exousias tou aeros, τον αρχοντα της εξουσιας του αερος) is Satan himself, the ruler of this world. Archon also can have the mundane meaning of earthly authorities, but we don’t see that in New Testament contexts like here, or in Ephesians 3:10, where the closely related word archai is used to talk about “the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” or here in Eph. 6:12:

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

The word translated “rulers” here is actually kosmokratoras (κοσμοκράτορας), literally “cosmic rulers.” So it’s very clear that in Christian usage, Archon is not being used to describe earthly authorities. In fact, in his genuine writings, Paul never mentions that Pilate, or Herod, or the Jewish leaders, or the Romans, or anyone else on earth crucified Jesus – in fact Pilate never even appears in the epistles except for a single mention in the much later forged Pastoral epistle 1Timothy (6:13). According to Paul, and all of the other epistle writers who wrote before the Gospels were written, there is never a hint of Jesus being crucified by any human person or government; it is the Archai or Archons, that is, Satan and his minions, who crucified Jesus.

Likewise, though O’Neill insists Paul says Jesus “ had a earthly, physical brother called James who Paul himself had met,” “an earthly, physical brother” is exactly what Paul does not say about James or any of the others referred to in the New Testament as the “Brothers of the Lord” (such as the 500 Brethren in 1 Cor. 15: 6); see pp. 144-145 in Nailed for further discussion, including the absence of any “consistent tradition” of James being Jesus’ brother – or anyone else being Jesus’ disciples (see Myth No. 9 for details).

And it’s ironic that O’Neill picked I Cor. 15:3-4; since in these verses, he tells us how he “knows” his Christ died and was buried, and it is for the same reason given in so many other places in Paul’s writings (and other Epistles) – because it was prophesied in the Hebrew scriptures:

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures…

O’Neill takes exception to me noting that Paul disdainfully dismisses James as though he was a nobody in Galatians 2:6. In fact it’s not just at 2:6; Paul is dismissive of all the leaders of the Jerusalem church, and has nothing to say at all about them being disciples or kin to Jesus. He even accuses them of trucking with false believers! Don’t take my word for it – read Galatians 2 for yourself:

¹ Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and also took Titus with me. ² And I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run, or had run, in vain. ³ Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. ⁴ And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage), ⁵ to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

⁶ But from those who seemed to be something—whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God shows personal favoritism to no man—for those who seemed to be something added nothing to me. ⁷ But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter ⁸ (for He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles), ⁹ and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. ¹⁰ They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do.

And the very next thing, he’s opposing both Peter and James for not following the gospel – again, with not a single so much as a hint that they had any kind of relationship to Jesus!

¹¹ Now when Peterhad come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; ¹² for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. ¹³ And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

¹⁴ But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do youcompel Gentiles to live as Jews?

(and their clash continues for the rest of the chapter…)

Conclusion:

O’Neill gives up long before the end of the book; not that I can see how he could find anything to argue against there, but I could be wrong about that… But before he pulls his most weakest, most chicken-shit maneuver of all – telling critics not to bother posting on his comment thread – O’Neill ends his screed predictably enough, with one final rant at “Mythers.” Mythers begin with their conclusion, they desperately want the Christ Myth to be true because they want to undermine Christianity, this book is weak, clumsy, confused, amateurish and represents everything that is hopelessly wrong about the “Myther thesis,” etc. etc.

So it seems that I will have to find a way to live without Tim O’Neill’s approval… which he seems to reserve to himself anyway. I’ll leave it up to the rest of you, Nailed’s readership, to be the final judge.

But I do take issue with his assertion that “the overwhelming majority of scholars, Christian, non-Christian, atheist, agnostic or Jewish, accept there was a Jewish preacher as the point of origin for the Jesus story simply because that makes the most sense of all the evidence.” In fact, it does not make the most sense of the evidence, which I defend in the essay “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?” and in my forthcoming book, Jesus: Mything in Action, coming in 2012.

Couchoud’s books contain many valuable insights. He was rightly dissatisfied with the mainstream scenario of Christian origins, and he rearranged the pieces of the puzzle together in a new way that provides a fresh perspective on them. There is much that he says that I agree with. I would not be surprised, for instance, if he is right about the role played by Clement of Rome. But I am disappointed that Couchoud—like practically everyone else—still does not take seriously Marcion’s claim that the original author of the Gospel and Pauline letter collection was someone who professed allegiance to a God higher than the Creator of this world, to a God higher than the God of the Jews.

The automatic assumption on the part of confessional scholars

The automatic assumption on the part of confessional scholars is that Marcion must have been mistaken in his views regarding the origin of the Gospel and Pauline letters. I cannot recall ever having come across a single mainstream Christian book that even considered for a moment that Marcion may have been right. Their attitude is understandable since, if Marcion was right, it would mean that the original Gospel and the Pauline letters were written by someone who was basically a gnostic, by someone who sounds very much like Simon of Samaria or one of his followers. Perish the heretical thought! But even non-confessional admirers of Marcion like Couchoud seem likewise unable to take seriously Marcion’s claim. Instead they make Marcion himself the creator of the Gospel and say that he either created the Pauline letters or imposed his own religious ideas on letters that did not originally contain them. For some reason this solution is thought to be preferable to taking Marcion at his word. As far as we know Marcion never claimed to be the author of those writings. He claimed that when he came across them they were in a contaminated state. They had been interpolated by people who Judaized them, who turned their original author into someone who believed in a single highest God who was the God of the Old Testament and the Creator of the world. Is Marcion’s claim so unbelievable? Is it really out of the question that the original Gospel and Pauline letters were Simonian and that it was their opponents who Judaized those writings? (I say “Simonian” because the early record does not contain the name of any other first century Christians who held the belief that the creators of this world were inferior to the supreme God, and that those creators tried to hold men in bondage by means of the Law.)

Too much trust in the writings of the heresy hunters?

I am aware that someone could object: “You’re trusting too much in the writings of the proto-orthodox heresy hunters. We should not believe their expositions of what Marcion taught.” But why not? Marcionites were apparently active in many of the same places as the proto-orthodox. And they competed for converts, each side looking to win over converts from the other. In such a situation, in competition with contemporary rivals who are rubbing shoulders with members of your flock, it wouldn’t have made sense to set up straw men. That would have made it too easy for the Marcionites. What sense would it make to set up straw men that the Marcionites could knock down in five seconds by saying: “That’s not what we believe.” Why waste time writing extensive refutations of arguments that your opponent can quickly dismiss with a simple: “They must be arguing against somebody else, because those aren’t our beliefs. Let me explain to you what we believe.” I am as suspicious as the next guy about many things in the proto-orthodox writings. But when it comes to what Marcion taught, I am inclined to trust that they actually engaged with his doctrine.

I am also inclined to believe that Tertullian was telling the truth when he said that Marcion initially held the same faith as the Roman church. He says that Marcion made his substantial monetary donation to that church “primo calore fidei” (“in the first flush of faith”). But if Marcion was a new convert, how on earth could he have ever gotten the idea that the Gospel and Letters had been interpolated? Was a practical-minded shipowner really that sharp-eyed? I doubt it. The extant record says he at some point made the acquaintance of the Simonian Cerdo. If anyone would have recognized what had been done to the Simonian writings it would have been the Simonians themselves. True, being a secretive bunch, their hands were tied to some extent. How do you expose the fraud without at the same time revealing your secret doctrines! But Marcion was not bound in the same way by secrecy. If he learned from Cerdo that the proto-orthodox Gospel and Pauline letters were contaminated, there was nothing to stop him from saying so and from trying to restore them as best he could.

To explain Paul’s zigzagging

To me, accepting at face value Marcion’s assessment of the Pauline letters is the best way to make sense of their contents. To explain Paul’s zigzagging we don’t have to resort to strained psychological or tactical explanations. Anyone who has read mainstream Pauline commentaries knows what I am talking about. They contain seemingly endless psychological reasons why Paul shifts back and forth on the contentious issues that separated the proto-orthodox from the early gnostics. If he speaks dismissively of the Law in one passage but praises it in another, it is because he was impulsive by nature. Or he was not a clear or systematic thinker. Or he was so passionate about his beliefs that he failed to notice the contradictions in what he wrote. He wrote things when he was angry that he surely later regretted. Etc… Etc. Or his reasons were tactical. Yes, it must be admitted that he used gnostic language and spoke like a gnostic. But as Schmithals, for instance, would explain it (away?), he was not really a gnostic. It was only a tactic he used because his opponents were gnostics: “Paul becomes a Gnostic to the Gnostics, in order to win the Gnostics” (Gnosticism in Corinth, p. 273). “… he (Paul) can have acquired the Gnostic elements of his theological set of concepts only during the fifteen-year stay in Arabia, Syria, and Cilicia…” (p. 71) But, Schmithals assures us, Paul’s knowledge of Gnosticism must have been very superficial, for “If Paul had known the actual meaning of his Gnostic terminology, he would not at all have been able to use this to express his own proclamation…” (p. 71.) Hmmm. Unfortunately, Schmithals convinced very few people that Paul’s Corinthian opponents were actually gnostics. So the nagging question remains: why then did Paul speak like a gnostic? My suspicion is because he was one, the first Christian one. And that his given name was Simon.

Instead of submitting the author of the Paulines to psychological or tactical analysis to explain his contradictions, I think consideration should be given first to the earliest explanation, that of Marcion: someone has tampered with the letters; they were originally gnostic but were subsequently Judaized. I know that playing the interpolation card looks like an “easy-out.” But surely it counts for something that from the first moment the Pauline collection of letters turns up in the early record a prominent Christian, Marcion, was already screaming: “Interpolated!”

A Paul by any other name

Now, as far as is known Marcion always used the name ‘Paul” for the original author of the Gospel and Letters, the Apostle who professed allegiance not to the Creator, the God of the Jews, but to a supreme God far above the Creator of this world. There is no clear indication in the extant record that Marcion viewed Paul as a nickname for Simon of Samaria. This is not as surprising as appears at first glance. The early record is clear that Simonians used many names and titles for Simon. And it seems that in time the name Simon became a kind of sacred name to the Simonians. According to Hippolytus, Simonians were okay with calling Simon ‘Zeus’ or “Lord,’ but accused anyone who used the name ‘Simon’ of being ignorant of the mysteries. So it may be that Cerdo did not reveal it to Marcion.

There is also a Nicene summary of Simonianism that seems to connect Simon’s name with the hymn in chapter 2 of Philippians. Simon claimed to be a new manifestation of the Son who suffered in Judaea, and Simonians claimed that Simon was given his name because he “heard/obeyed” the Father when he earlier descended to this world to redeem men. The etymological root of the name Simon means “heard, hearkened, obeyed,” so it actually makes better sense of the hymn in Philippians if the name given was ‘Simon’ and was only subsequently changed to ‘Jesus’ when the letter was Judaized. I think there is also double-meaning Simonian wordplay still present in Mark’s Gospel that involve Simon’s name. For instance, when the Father says at the Transfiguration: “This is my beloved Son—Hear Him” the words “Hear Him” are both a command and an identification i.e. This is my beloved Son whose name is “Hear Him” (Simon).

In Conclusion

To finish up: Marcion never fully embraced Simonianism, but I think that from his acquaintance with Cerdo he learned that the Gospel and Pauline letters in use in Rome in the 130s had been interpolated. I think Marcion was correct in that basic contention. And I think he was right that the original versions of those writings were authored by someone who believed in a supreme God above the Creator God of the Jews. Those writings viewed this world including the flesh as inferior not because of some sin by man, but intrinsically by reason of its creation by the inferior world-creating angels. And they portrayed the future not as some millennial kingdom of God on this earth, but as escape of the souls of the redeemed from this world, back to the invisible, immaterial world of the highest God.

I part ways with Marcion, however, in his identification of who it was that Judaized the Gospel and Letters. He apparently, according to Tertullian, accused the false brethren mentioned in the letter to the Galatians. I suspect it was done by the proto-orthodox Roman church around 130 CE. And Marcion apparently thought the Gospel was written by Paul. I think the first Gospel that contained a life of Jesus was a Simonian allegory about Simon that may have been written as late as the 120s.

The proto-orthodox Judaization of the Simonian Gospel and Letters was ultimately successful, of course. They succeeded in co-opting Simonian Christianity.

My Couchoud series posts (outlines of his work discussing the beginnings of Christianity, The Creation of Christ) are archived here. This post continues the series.

The churches in Clement’s day, and in particular the Church of Rome, were governed by Elders. Paul, of course, knew of no such institution. The heads of the various churches in his day were the Prophets.

This grave defect had to be remedied, so our editor manufactured three new Epistles. For that he made use of another remnant — a letter of simple news addressed to Timothy by Paul from Nicopolis to Epirus. Out of this little thing he made three: two letters to Timothy and one to Titus; and the second letter to Timothy was Paul’s testament written at Rome. (p. 304)

He took a single letter and broke it into three parts that became the Pastorals, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Note the repetitions. Paul has forgotten a cloke at Troas on his way from Miletus to Nicopolis. He has escaped his enemies at Ephesus and thanks his friends by Timothy.

Titus 3:12-14

12When I shall send Artemas unto thee, or Tychicus, be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis: for I have determined there to winter.

13Bring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto them.

14And let our’s also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful.

2 Timothy 1:15-18

15This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

16The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain:

17But, when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me.

18The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day: and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.

2 Timothy 4:9-22

9Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me:

10For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.

11Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.

12And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus.

13The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.

14Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:

15Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.

16At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.

17Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

18And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

19Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus.

20Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.

21Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.

22The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen.

The words “in Rome” have been added to 2 Timothy 1:17 in order to give the appearance that these fictitious letters were all composed in Rome. Thus the section of the aspiring canon that opened with a letter to the Romans concluded with a set of letters from Rome.

In these there is no longer any attempt to imitate Paul’s style; they are in the same “homily” manner which is employed in Clement’s letter to the Corinthians, with the same hackneyed phrases — good works, good confession, good fight. These last letters appear to have been made up in a hurry. (p. 304)

So this “false Paul” is seen to be founding Rome’s canonical succession of Elders with an apostle.

He laid down the rules for their selection.

He had to be married (but only to one wife!), the master of his children, sober, peaceful, hospitable, righteous, holy and a master of self-control.

The job of the ordinary faithful was to give generously to the Elders and give them double honours.

The main duty of an Elder was to preserve the Apostolic tradition such as the editor of the New Testament had made it, defending it like a good soldier against all innovators.

There were two types of such “innovators” this author was concerned about:

1. Those who were interested in Jewish things: the Law and its many questions and problems, Jewish myths (“old wives tales”) and interminable genealogies;
2. Those who forbade marriage and ascetics who shunned foods given by God for our good — the Marcionites.

The author of these letters recognized dangers in continence and abstinence (these were virtues for Marcion). He advised Timothy to drink a little wine so as  not to restrict himself to water.

There appears to have been a personal duel between the editor of these epistles and Marcion.

Marcion read the Gospel dedicated to Theophilus [i.e. "our" Gospel of Luke] and criticized it in his book the Antithesis as “interpolated by the protectors of Judaism, who would incorporate in it the Law and the Prophets.”* This was to criticize too well, and finds its reply already written in Paul’s letter to Timothy: “Guard the deposit and turn away from the profane babblings and antithesis of a so-called gnosis. Some who profess it have missed the mark concerning the faith” (I Tim. vi. 20-21). (p. 305)

* For if the Gospel, said to be Luke’s which is current amongst us (we shall see whether it be also current with Marcion), is the very one which, as Marcion argues in his Antitheses, was interpolated by the defenders of Judaism, for the purpose of such a conglomeration with it of the law and the prophets as should enable them out of it to fashion their Christ, surely he could not have so argued about it, unless he had found it (in such a form). (Tertullian Adv. Marc. iv. 4)

In reality both Paul and John taught that the resurrection was a past event and the faithful were saved now from their former sinful bodies. The editor of these Pastorals found an opportunity to correct this false “Marcionite” teaching, too. He explained how readers were to interpret the Gospel of John and any similar curiosities in Paul: Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who have missed the mark concerning the truth, saying the resurrection is past already (2 Timothy 2:17-18).

Evidently the reader must not be allowed to proceed without a guide. All Scripture has been divinely inspired, and all Scripture requires a living interpreter capable of making wholesome comment on it and even of correcting it. In every Church the body of Elders should be such a living interpreter. (p. 305)

Image via Wikipedia

This post continues notes from Couchoud’s The Creation of Christ — all posts are archived in Couchoud: Creation of Christ.

Paul-Louis Couchoud, by the way, gets several nods in W. O. Walker’s Interpolations in the Pauline Letters (so, more than once, does Hermann Detering) — See the GoogleBook–Interpolations in the Pauline Letters. From there do a word search in the left margin search-box for “Couchoud” and see the full list of references in that work. (I only mention this for the benefit of anyone who may have run across Dr James McGrath’s or any other scholar’s ignorant scoffing of Couchoud in response to posts in this series. Some scholars can address figures the views of one like Couchoud with the dignified civility expected of public intellectuals.)

Couchoud only skims the surface of conclusions from his more detailed publication, La Première Edition de St. Paul (Premiers Ecrits du Christianisme, 1930). Hermann Detering has posted an online version of this work on his site. So what is outlined here are conclusions, not arguments.

In a footnote in The Creation of Christ Couchoud lists what he believes are the “touch-ups” (editings) an editor (Clement of Rome?) has made in the original letter to the Galatians:

Galatians 1:18-24 (Paul visits the Jerusalem apostles after three years)

Galatians 2:6-9 (the gospel of the uncircumcision to Paul and that of the circumcision to Peter)

Galatians 3:6-9 (the faithful are children of Abraham)

Galatians 4:27-30 (Isaac represents the children of promise, the bondwoman Hagar and her son are cast out)

Galatians 3:10-14 and 4:21-26 (curses of the law and blessings of Abraham; allegory of the two covenants)

In the touched-up Epistle to the Galatians the proud recital Paul makes of his communications with the Jerusalem Apostles becomes overloaded. To give an air of accuracy, Paul is made to visit Jerusalem three years after his conversion, instead of the short and vague delay mentioned in Acts. His opposition to the Apostles is obscured, and, on the other hand, the scene of their reconciliation is emphasized. [See La Première Edition de St. Paul (in English)]

Further on a discreet reference to the first chapters of St. Luke is inserted.

Then in the phrase “God sent forth his Son that he might redeem them which were under the Law” (Gal. iv. 4) the editor slips in “born of a woman, born under the Law.”

Marcion would scarcely dare refer now to his Epistle where the Law was so ingeniously termed “our tutor unto Christ” (Gal. iii. 24).

Abraham appears once again with the Christians as his sole legitimate seed. The Jews of the day deserved their servitude; they had to be cast out, for “cast out the handmaid and her son, for the son of the handmaid shall not inherit with the son of the freewoman.” Nothing so severe on the Jews had been written by a Christian who pretended to be a disciple of the Bible. (pp. 303-304, my formatting)

What a time! Once your powerful enemy slipped in a few extra verses and disseminated your authoritative scriptures for you how could you compete against the accusations that it was you who had mutilated them?

Page with text of Epistle to the Romans 1:1-7: Image via Wikipedia

I continue here the series covering Paul Louis Couchoud’s argument for the creation of the canonical New Testament literature from the 1939 English translation of his The Creation of Christ: An Outline of the Beginnings of Christianity. The series is archived here — scroll to the bottom for the first posts where the overall purpose for which the literature is covered, along with when and why and why Couchoud suspects Clement of Rome as the editor (and author) responsible.

The guiding principle for the structure was Marcion’s “canon” that began with a Gospel and included ten letters of Paul.

Background: In brief, Marcion was a prominent leader of a form of Christianity that (at least until recently) has been generally believed to have rejected totally the Old Testament and taught that Jesus came down from heaven to preach about an Alien (unknown) God who was all love and higher than the Jewish God of the law and judgment. Marcion claimed Paul as his sole apostolic authority in opposition to the other apostles who never understood Christ’s message. Couchoud argues that a Roman church elder (he suspects Clement) attempted to unite the diverse Christianities represented by competing Gospels (such as Marcion’s Gospel, Matthew, John, Mark) bringing them all together through the themes expressed in Luke and Acts (his own creations, though Luke was largely a re-write of Marcion’s Gospel) except for the intolerable Marcionite views that had to be countered.

Couchoud has covered the creations and compilation of the Gospels and Acts, and now comes to the orthodox versions of the Pauline letters. Marcion had selected Galatians as the most appropriate for the introduction of Paul’s thought; “Clement”(?) preferred Romans as the one most potentially adaptable as a frame of reference for the “correct” reading of Paul’s corpus. (Marcion had placed it fourth.) This would leave nothing more to do than revise a few details here and there in the other letters.

This editor enlarged Romans to twice its original size. (Couchoud mainly follows Harnack’s reconstruction of Marcion’s thought, Gospel and epistles. I have begun posting elsewhere Sebastian Moll’s revision of Harnack’s basic premis in his 2010 work and must post more on that in the future. I keep with Couchoud’s thoughts here.) Massive additions were:

• Romans 1:19-2:1
• Romans 3:21-31
• Romans 6
• Romans 9
• Romans 10:5-21
• Romans 11:1-32
• Romans 15
• Romans 16

Couchoud adds that Paul’s jerky style was superficially imitated. Thus the doxologies in the body of the epistle together with the Amen (Romans 1:25; 9:5; 11:36) are not in Paul’s style but in Clement‘s:

• 1 Clement 20:12
• 1 Clement 32:4
• 1 Clement 38:4
• 1 Clement 43:6
• 1 Clement 45:7
• 1 Clement 50:7
• 1 Clement 64

They also appear in 1 Timothy 1:17 and 1 Peter 4:11.

Couchoud anticipates Hermann Detering’s argument that part of the introductory verses to Romans was an anti-Marcionite addition.

In the beginning where Paul solemnly declares himself to be an apostle (“separated unto the Gospel of God,” “concerning his Son,” “declared with power”), is added an echo of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (“who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh”). In this leading place these words are a refutation of Marcion. (p. 302)

Paul’s attitude to the law was converted into “Luke’s” attitude. Thus Romans 3:21 declaims, “Do we then make the Law of none effect through faith? God forbid; nay, we establish the Law”.

It is not established in Matthew’s manner by its fulfilment. It is established as a prophecy. For example, Abraham, who had faith in God, is no other than the mysterious prophetic father of the Christians, “our father” (iv. 12 and 16); compare “Abraham our father” in 1 Clem. xxxi. 2). (p. 302)

Interpreted allegorically the entire Bible’s meaning is now said to be incomprehensible to the Jews. It contains a mystery God had long hidden but is now revealed to the Christians. Marcion taught that the Gospel was a mystery long hidden from the world and the Jews and our editor embraced this idea, but he rejected Marcion’s teaching that the mystery was only revealed through Paul. It was revealed in the OT prophets.

The whole Bible takes on a secret meaning which is hidden from the Jews. The mystery of God “which hath been kept in silence through times eternal,” wherein the Catholic “Paul” is of the same opinion as Marcion, is now revealed to Christians “by the scriptures of the prophets”; in this Paul is opposed to Marcion.

The new Paul teaches that all the former spiritual privileges of the Jews are now handed over to the repentant Gentiles. These heathen could have known God through observation of the creation around them (compare Paul’s sermon to the Athenians in Acts) but they chose to worship idols instead. God therefore punished them with unnatural lusts but if they repented they could have all that the Jews had been promised. Good Christian that he is, however, this editor most regrettably accepted that the Jews’ incredulity was “utterly incurable”. He even had Jesus weep over Jerusalem in the Gospel of Luke. It was God’s will that the fall of the Jews would mean the salvation of the Gentiles. As expressed through the Lukan parable of the Prodigal Son, the whole idea was that the conversion of the Gentiles should arouse the jealousy of the Jews (Rom. 9:11).

Paul orders the Roman Church to fully submit to the imperial authorities, including payment of all taxes (Rom. 13:1-7).

Paul is made to foresee the fate of Jerusalem. (It had been utterly ruined in 135 c.e. by Hadrian.)

Clement had himself known that Paul had preached in Spain — had reached the “limits of the Occident” (1 Clem. 5:7) — and this journey is confirmed by an editor’s insertion of the mention of reaching Spain in order to finally complete his message to the Gentile world.

This would be another explanation (already suggested by a number of scholars in a quite different context) for Acts concluding as it does, without a trial or execution. The opportunity to go to Spain is allowed for yet the primary purpose of Paul’s mission to Rome is completed. (My comment, not Couchoud’s.)

“However, the editor pinned on to the original a Pauline relic, a recommendation of Phoebe, a deaconess of a Corinthian port, which had been probably addressed to the Ephesian Church, or to certain Ephesian faithful, whom it enumerates” (Romans 16:1-23):

• Epaenetus is greeted as the first Asiatic Christian (16:5) — compare 1 Corinthians 16:15, Stephanas the first Achaean Christian
• The apostle Andronicus in 16:7 appears in the Acts of John as one of the chiefs of the Church at Ephesus (B. W. Bacon, Expository Times; 1931, pp. 300-304)

In this letter Paul, the genuine Paul, denounces the Christians  who do not serve our Lord Christ, but their bellies — i.e., who expect Christ’s Coming to bring material abundance. (Footnote, p. 303)

Next, the Epistle to the Galatians.

Ananias restoring the sight of Paul: Image via Wikipedia

I’ll try to complete Paul-Louis Couchoud’s explanations for the second century productions of the canonical New Testament literature starting here with his discussion of Acts. For those who enjoy the stimulation of new (even if old) ideas to spark fresh thoughts, read on.

I left off my earlier series on Couchoud’s thoughts on Gospel origins with his argument that the Gospel of Luke was the last Gospel written and was primarily a response to Marcion. The final remarks in that post were:

On the Emmaus Road Marcion had Jesus remind the travellers that Christ must suffer. Luke goes further and adds that Jesus began with Moses and taught them all that the Prophets said must happen to Christ.

Marcion’s Gospel closed with the words:

Thus it was that the Christ should suffer,
And rise again from the dead the third day
And that there be preached in his name
Repentance and remission of sins to all the nations.

Luke saw what was not said so added:

These are my words that I spoke
While I was yet with you;
How that all things must needs be fulfilled as it is written
In the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms of me.
Then opened he their mind
To understand the Scriptures.

Thus Jesus’ final teaching links up with the first. Marcion is refuted. The Old Testament and Gospel are not in opposition. The Gospel is found in the Old Testament.

Recall that it was Couchoud’s suspicion that the real author of this Gospel and its companion, Acts, was Clement of Rome. So to continue on from there:

Acts of the Apostles – and of the Holy Spirit

First recall that Couchoud sees Luke’s masterpiece innovation as the Holy Spirit. It was this that Luke introduced for reasons of political control:

In this lies his masterpiece. He endowed the Church with a doctrine of the Holy Ghost which was to assure its stability and give it the means of checking the last prophetic explosions — those of Montanus and his prophetesses and energumens. The Holy Ghost is a celestial being derived from God and from Jesus; at times it appears in the form of a dove [i.e. from Mark 1], at others in the shape of tongues of flame [i.e. from Enoch 66:5]. It is burning and weighty, and it falls on him to whom God sends it;  it seizes him. The Holy Ghost took possession of the prophets of the Old Testament and spoke by their mouths. But — here take heed! — it did this only to foretell the coming of Jesus, his sufferings, and his glory. This preparation was not done for the benefit of the prophets nor their auditors, but for Christians [1 Clem 17:1 et al]. Since Jesus’s birth all that has changed. The Holy Ghost fertilized a virgin and consecrated Jesus on earth. When Jesus returned to heaven, he caused the Holy Ghost to fall on the Apostles. Whereon they announced the coming of Jesus, told of his sufferings and his glory; the very things which the prophets of old had foretold. Prophecy is therefore replaced by the Gospel, and the two converge on Jesus. Both to-day are fixed by the written word, and should be the constant reading of the faithful; there is left no further room for prophecy. (p. 272)

So we have the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It opens with this power falling down from on high into the apostles to be witnesses of Jesus.

There is the Ascension, then the re-establishment of the Twelve by casting lots to replace Judas.

Originally 120 persons made up a church, a Christian community of the type Clement [in Couchoud's mind the real author] would have liked to see in the churches of his time. Then comes the festival of Pentecost, when the Jews celebrate the giving of the Law as a sounding river of fire, so they said, which was divided into seventy tongues for the benefit of the seventy nations. (B. W. Bacon, 1933) By substituting the Holy Ghost for the Law, the festival became a Christian one. (p. 293)

This is a sequel to Jesus’ own baptism in the Gospel. The same spirit that came down on Jesus also came upon the Mother Church — and will descend upon all those other churches that the apostles will establish.

Interjecting with my own reflection here, I wonder if this is a more likely explanation for Luke bypassing the scene of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus in the Gospel. It is at least a positive reason — consistent with other ways Luke handles Markan stories — rather than the usual negative explanation that Luke was “embarrassed” by the scene in Mark. Is what Luke (Clement?) doing here emphasizing the heavenly source of the Holy Spirit and the continuity of this heaven-sent spirit joining Jesus with the first Church and then all subsequent churches? Would not a reminder that John the Baptist was the agency of that Spirit have detracted from this intention?

Compare later Paul receiving the Holy Spirit through a lowly disciple.

If so, let’s look again at Matthew’s variation on Mark’s baptism scenario. Here the emphasis is on obedience, fulfilling all righteousness, humility. Yes, these can be interpreted as rationales for an embarrassing situation, but can they not just as plausibly be seen as a reshaping of the scene to accord with Matthew’s larger theme of righteousness and being poor in spirit, etc.? Does not this latter explanation have the advantage of coherence with the remainder of the Gospels’ theologies and their treatments of Mark?

In other words, need we really attribute embarrassment to the Baptism scenes in Matthew and Luke (and its non-inclusion in John)? Why not consider that these later authors were doing what they did with nearly every other detail they adapted from Mark — positively recast each detail according to each evangelist’s personal theological views? I suppose this can be said to imply some level of embarrassment, but surely no more than anything else in Mark that these authors chose to modify. But more significantly, surely, is the fact that such an interpretation is consistent with all the other ways in which they treated Mark’s anecdotes.

Taming unruly tongues

Paul’s churches had been plagued with inarticulate gibberish said to be the language of angels, or tongues-speaking (glossolalia). Luke was wanting to bring order and control into the churches and mavericks, prophets and unruly “prophets” acting independently like this had to be stamped out. So Luke placed its origin in the controlled Jerusalem Church (not Paul’s churches) and showed readers that it was nothing other than “a marvellous and valuable polyglottism”.

Starting thus

Starting thus from an utterly mythical point of departure, Luke undertakes the history of the early Church. He had at his disposal meagre tales current among the Palestine communities and a Life of St. Paul which was probably by Marcion. He did not hesitate to employ matter of his own, and took care to balance evenly the relative importance of Peter and Paul, from both of whom the Roman Church pretended to derive its origin, attributing to them both the same doctrine and the same miracles. It was his aim and his craft to model the difficult transition from the religious myth to genuine history in a convincing manner by means of a very free hagiographic legend. (p. 294)

So Acts was written.

The Holy Spirit had to be transported, like the torch in a classic race, from Jerusalem to Rome.

At each stage the Jews had to be offered the Gospel first, they had to reject it, and then it could be offered to the Gentiles. This pattern was to demonstrate that the faith was not a new religion as Marcion taught, but the oldest religion, the true religion of Israel. Prophecy had foretold that those same people would reject it. Prophecy also told of Jesus’ life. So to preach the Gospel was to teach that Jesus was the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.

So to accept the Gospel and Jesus was to accept the Old Testament and the “true” religion of Israel. Contra Marcion.

The old warnings of the imminent coming of the Lord were thrust into the background. They were “replaced by a simple affirmation of the bodily resurrection.”

In fact, Luke presents as the most ancient Christian doctrine that which was in reality the teaching developed against Marcion in the middle of the second century. (p. 294)

One word to the Jews, another to the Gentiles

Matthew composed sermons that were designed to appeal to Jews and to win them over. Not so Luke. The sermons to the Jews he place in the mouths of Peter, Stephen and Paul are mere formalities.

The case of the Jews is lost beforehand as it had to be. The true objection of the Jews which John dealt with directly was the difficulty of recognizing any other God than God, and it is evaded by Luke. Peter accuses the Jews of having crucified and denied “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you,” whom God raised again and made Lord and Christ. That the Jews may have still less excuse, the divinity of Jesus is reduced to what it became in the degenerate christology of Hermas, adoption * by God. As for Stephen, he thought to convict the Jews of ever having rebelled against their own God (Acts vii. 51-52). . . .

* This adoption is there for good reason. It must not be taken to be the conception out of which Christianity emerged. It is a residue, not a germ. (p. 295)

Interjecting again, excuse me. I find a lot that is fascinating to think about here. So here is an argument that the low christology in Acts is not evidence of a primitive Christianity but is a tactical innovation to cast more blame upon the Jews. The Jews could be “forgiven” (not quite the right word) for thinking Jesus a blasphemer if he was considered a rival to God in heaven, but if he was little more than a “son of God” in the sense that other biblical heroes were or could have been, then they have no excuse at all for their rejection of him.

Couchoud also argues John is a second century Gospel. But there is something here that addresses, I think, another reason to see John as second century. The Jewish insistence on a very strict concept of a sole God was, from what I understand, very much a product of rabbinic Judaism that only emerged (probably in parallel with Christianity) after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 c.e. Christianity carried over more of the older “traditions” of Second Temple beliefs including teachings of the likes of Enoch. The God being or God head was not such a monolithic unitary concept for all Jews then. There were possibly shades of a mutated “polytheism” among them with angels and hypostases even standing in for God at times. Couchoud says John dealt with Jews who had a problem with Christianity’s concept of God and Jesus’ position, but I think should also be considered a grappling with a distinctly second century phenomenon.

Contrast the sermons to the Gentiles:

On the other hand, the sermons to the Gentiles are persuasive, different in tone and effect from those to the Jews. Peter tells them that the God of Israel is “no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that fears him and does right is acceptable to him” (Acts x.34). That same Holy Ghost which the Jews withstand comes down on the heathen. Barnabas and Paul teach the Lycaonians that the Creator has “suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways,” and has made himself manifest by the good he has done,” in that he gave you from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts xiv. 16). * Had not the finest of the pagans discovered that already for themselves? Luke places at Paul’s service the finest flowers culled from his acquaintance with Attic orators, Stoic poets, and philosophers when he makes him speak before the Athenian Areopagus . . . [17:22 - Lycurgus; 17:28a - Epimenides; 17:28b - Aratos] . . .

* Compare these expressions with those in which Clement speaks of the Creator in I Clem. xx. 4: “The teeming earth, according to his will, abounds in its proper season, in food for man and for beast.” (pp. 295-296)

Now why have I not read this before? Okay, I’m not a scholar and do not have the opportunity to dedicate my life to reading all that I want. It had never occurred to me before that there is this author-designed different treatment of the Jews and Gentiles before, at least not like this. I must re-read those sermons and check out this claim for myself.

But Couchoud has a striking way of making a point. After quoting Paul’s sermon on the Areopagus he notes:

Here is indeed a surprise: the God of the Stoics turns out to be Jahweh himself. That very God which Israel had failed to know the heathen had perceived and adored.

Retrojecting Rome’s College of Elders to the Jerusalem Apostles

The established Church was governed by Elders (whose charge was the Word of God) and by deacons who assisted with the material welfare.

Luke would say that such had been its organization from the very beginning. He therefore made the Apostles to be the original College of Elders; and the first deacons were, willy-nilly, the Hellenist Christians who were in opposition to the Hebrews. (p. 296)

Now there is a lot of interesting explanatory power here to some longstanding curiosities in Acts. One notes Couchoud’s wink to the anti-semitic theme here, too. 

So Luke had to correct the old Peter legends (and those of Paul, too) and bring such independents into the team: the first Apostles had to be always a collective just as was the Church government of Rome. This effort led to a lot of clumsiness, such as when he tries to team up Peter always with John so Peter is no longer a head above the rest. Compare the oddness of him trying to describe Peter fastening his eyes upon one seeking healing, “with John” (Acts 3:4)

I don’t follow Couchoud’s thought when he addresses the contributions made to the Jerusalem apostles through people selling their own properties. He says this was Luke’s way of interpreting the large collections which were sent to these apostles. The faithful learn, moreover, that the ancient rigour in the obligation of giving to the Elders a share of their wealth for the needs of the Church was relaxed to some extent. I don’t understand why there had to be wealth in the hands of the Jerusalem Twelve to be explained in the first place. I may have missed something earlier in the book.

Marcion in the Guise of Simon Magus

Though deacons could baptize the prayers of the apostles were required before the Holy Spirit could be given.

Note the deacon Philip going down to the Samaritans and baptizing many of them, yet without them receiving the Holy Spirit.

From this we deduce [really induce, but never mind] that there were baptized Christians who nevertheless had not received the Holy Ghost. Who can these be? you may ask. They were those Christians who did not belong to the communion of the Apostles. These would be the Marcionites, you think, and the narrator of Acts bring in Marion’s very self in the guise of Simon Magus. (p. 297)

This Simon was a Samaritan Gnostic. Justin Martyr was a native of Samaria and could have offered information about him (1 Apology xxvi; lvi) to the author of Acts.

[H]ere he is introduced as a mighty magician known as the Great Power of God. Mark what follows! Simon is baptized. He sees Peter and John giving the Holy Ghost.

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God.

Beneath the mask of Simon, called the father of all heresies, stood the recent heretic who had thought to buy with money the communion of the Church of Rome. Marcion had not yet died. Did the Church dream that the power of God might be moved by prayer to bring him back repentant to the fold, that the Church might not be divided? Peter adds:-

Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”

Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

Simon’s answer left some hope. (pp. 297-298 — I have copied another translation in place of Couchoud’s quotation of Acts 8)

I have always wondered about that inconclusive ending leaving Simon in spiritual limbo. This is the first time I have come across an explanation for it. Of course we have other arguments, such as those of Roger Parvus and Hermann Detering that this Simon was really a cipher for Paul himself, or rather that Paul was a cipher for Simon.

Paul’s case treated with the greatest of care

Couchoud here repeats what many scholars have likewise suggested, but it’s interesting to read it from his perspective:

Paul’s case had to be treated with the greatest care, for Paul was the Apostle by whom the Holy Ghost had been brought to Rome. The greater part of this book is devoted to his story, and his epistles were intended to complement the Gospels. Yet this terrible fellow had always taught that he held his title of Apostle from God himself. In fact he had been a prophet, the most untameable of the lot, and to bring him in was to risk upsetting the whole orderly system. Luke had therefore to bring him into line. Into what place did he fall in the order: The Prophets, Jesus, the Apostles, the Elders? Fortune had directed that Paul, after many years of free apostleship, had entered into the communion of the Apostles of Jerusalem, and again, after he had quitted that community, had returned to it. Our author’s aim was to efface all traces of independence and of variation. He therefore brought Paul, immediately after his conversion, into the company of the Twelve. The title of Apostle was left to him, as it was also to Barnabas. The number of Apostles, authorized authors or inspirers of the New Testament, was thus brought up to fourteen. The Holy Ghost was not given to him by one of the Twelve, but by a pious disciple, at Jesus’s command. (pp. 298-299)

It starts to make more sense of the way 12 apostles could become 14 if we hypothesize that Luke was shaping this collective as a template for the church government in his own day.

Barnabas is a Levite of Cyprus and as such can be seen as a link between the Jewish priesthood and the Apostles.

Luke took Paul’s letter to Galatians as the basis of his tale of his conversion. Paul’s own account of his conversion in his defence before King Agrippa (Acts 26:12-20) follows the outline of Galatians — receiving the call directly from Jesus himself and receiving no investiture through man’s hands. Luke inserts into this outline another scene he took from Josephus: the tale of the conversion of King Izates by the Jew Ananias. Thus the name and role of Ananias in Paul’s conversion.

So having been brought into the faith through the humble Ananias Paul preached the Gospel at Damascus. It was “many days” after that that he finally went up to Jerusalem where Barnabas brought him into the fellowship of the Apostles. Paul was then “in Jerusalem going in and out” among the brethren there.

Fortified with this knowledge, the pious reader can read the Pauline Epistles without running any risk. He will be able to put the right interpretation on them and will be able to correct what Paul said himself about his first apostleship. (p. 300)

I’m fascinated by the idea that Damascus and Antioch were birth cities of significant movements that eventually gelled into Christianity. Can’t help wondering that Palestine, Jerusalem included, were really only ideological constructions of a later time. Don’t know. Or maybe Jerusalem was a spiritual “gnostic-like” sister of Damascus and Antioch, too?

So Paul is invested with the Holy Spirit that first came to the Jerusalem apostles and so is able to safely undertake his many journeys.

He meets disciples in Ephesus who were baptized only with John’s baptism and is able to exercise the same power of the other apostles by praying the Holy Spirit down upon them (Acts 19:1-8) — just as Peter and John had done for the Samaritans. “He appoints Elders with Apostolic authority.”

In Ephesus Paul warns the church of the future heresy that is to break out in Asia (20:28-30) — the area thickest with Marcionism.

Finally he comes to Rome as a prisoner, preaches for the last time the Gospel before the Jews first and then the Gentiles. “Isaiah’s prophecy of Israel’s unbelief is fulfilled utterly.”

The End

When the two volumes dedicated to Theophilus have been read through . . .  The origins of Christianity now appear perfectly simple and clear. Once the way is indicated, the road unrolls itself in perfect order. Only by an effort of thought can the reader distinguish the artifice with which the parts have been joined together, with which a jumble of myth and confused history have been mingled and moulded into these grand, calm, and noble forms. (p. 301)

There are weak spots in Couchoud’s argument but there is also an abundance of gems. To paraphrase Ashleigh Brilliant (must acknowledge him given his notoriety for litigiousness!) Couchoud’s case may not be totally perfect but part of it are excellent fodder for thought.

Next, the Epistles.

From Czech Parliament: I can forgive a historian cum theologian who makes Prague the centre of the world

Edited conclusion and added the last paragraph since first posting this.

This is not about mythicism versus the historicity of Jesus. It makes no difference to me if Jesus was a revolutionary or a rabbi, lived 100 b.c.e., 30 c.e. or was philosophical-theological construct. All of that is completely irrelevant for assessing the validity of the fundamentals of how historians [ideally/should] work with sources. From what I have read of mythicist literature I think that few mythicists are any more informed of the basics of how a historian ought to approach sources than are most theologians and other historical Jesus scholars. Theologians have taken the lead in biblical studies and others approaching this field have fallen in step with the methods they have bequeathed.

Unfortunately theologians generally have the most to lose ideologically from any change in their methods and so are likely to be the most antagonistic to any criticism of their methods that comes from outside their guild. Not that valid historical methods will necessarily mean the demise of the historicity of Jesus. Far from it! But I do believe that valid historical methods will at least open up the question to potentially greater respectability; they will also make greater intellectual demands on theologians to justify their hypotheses and assumptions. Maybe there lies the great fear.

Recently I have posted a few extracts from historians giving basic advice on how historians should approach their sources. “From Reliable Sources” by Howell and Prevenier looks primarily (not exclusively) at written sources and Vansina is an authority on history derived from oral sources. Since I placed these quotations beside those of a theologian who asserts strenuously (though consistently with zero supporting evidence) that theologians do just what other mainstream historians do, I was accused of misrepresenting both the historians’ works I quoted and his own words that I quoted in full. It was even suggested I had not even read the books along with the sly hint that since I was a “lowly librarian” I was not qualified to quote anyone or comment on an academic question anyway. Such are the cerebral (intestinal?) responses from those who reluctantly look into a verbal mirror placed before them by one whose otherwise unrelated conclusions they despise (fear?).

The touchstone of all historical interpretation of a source is knowing its provenance. Yet this is the first hurdle historical Jesus scholars crash into. Historical Jesus scholars bypass the basic standards historians normally apply when approaching their sources and rely entirely on circular reasoning to establish what they need to support their hypotheses.

Let’s look again at what are the basics any historian worth his or her salt should first establish in order to know how to interpret a document and understand what sort of information can be validly gleaned from it.

Two caveats to the above, though.

1. An increasing number of scholars, no doubt theologians among them, are now embracing valid historical methodology in relation to the Old Testament.
2. Further, there are good histories and bad histories, diligent historians and lazy historians. My yardstick in this post for what constitutes good history is taken from works I have discussed in recent posts — an introduction to graduate students about to undertake serious historical research and various editions of an authority on oral history.

Certain Basic Matters

Here is some of what I quoted from Howell and Prevenier in my earlier post:

In order for a source to be used as evidence in a historical argument, certain basic matters about its form and content must be settled. (p. 43, emphasis mine)

What are some of these basic matters? They explain:

[T]he source must be carefully located in place and time: when was it composed, where, in what country or city, in what social setting, by which individual? Are these apparent “facts” of composition correct?  — that is, is the date indicated, let us say, in a letter . . . the date it was actually written? Is the place indicated within the source the actual place of composition? . . . .

[T]he source must be checked for authenticity. Is it what it purports to be . . . Can we tell . . . that the document was not composed where it presents itself as having been composed? . . . .

And again on page 63:

The identifications [of time, place, author] provided by the source itself are . . . often misleading. . . . [S]ometimes authors are deliberately faking a source, sometimes they are disguising the real place and date of issuance.

This is repeated by the oral historian Vansina who points to the common approach historians must use for both written and oral sources that are written down by the researcher:

The task of a historian working with written documents starts when he or she finds or takes up such a document and begins to read it. . . . [T]he classical rules of evidence are straightforward. What is this document both physically and as a message? Is it an original, written by the person who composed it? Is it authentic, truly what it claims to be or is it a forgery? Who wrote it, when, or where? Once the answers to these questions are known an internal analysis of the content can proceed. As long as they are not known one does not know to what any analysis of content they relate. So the analysis of the document itself comes first.

But to historians dealing with oral tradition the situation is very different. Some of these are indeed faced with a piece of writing that claims to be the record of a tradition. The usual questions must be asked, but will refer only to the record not to the tradition itself. In most cases, however, the relationship of the historian to the documents is totally different. He or she did not find the piece of writing, but rather created it. He or she recorded a living tradition. The questions now are: what is the relationship of the text to a particular performance of the tradition involved and what is the relationship of that performance to the tradition as a whole? Only when it is clear how the text stands to the performance and the latter to the tradition can an analysis of the contents of the message begin. This means that the questions of authenticity, originality, authorship, and place and time of composition must be asked at each of these stages. (pp. 33-34, Oral Tradition As History, my emphasis)

Vansina (as referenced in my earlier post) makes it clear that only by means of external controls, that is information based on sources external to the oral source itself (including an intimate knowledge of the people, culture and institutions that are the matrix of the oral source), and that can normally only be acquired by the diligent effort of the researcher. Howell and Prevenier repeat this fact:

Historians can place trust in oral sources only to the extent that they can be verified by means of external evidence of another kind, such as archaeological, linguistic, or cultural. (p. 26)

There is nothing new here, at least not for historians. At least one New Testament scholar was crying out for these basics to be understood and applied by his peers as long ago as 1904:

The history of classical literature has gradually learned to work with the notions of the literary-historical legend, novella, or fabrication; after untold attempts at establishing the factuality of statements made it has discovered that only in special cases does there exist a tradition about a given literary production independent of the self-witness of the literary production itself; and that the person who utilizes a literary-historical tradition must always first demonstrate its character as a historical document. General grounds of probability cannot take the place of this demonstration.

It is no different with Christian authors. 

This is from an academic paper delivered in 1904 by E. Schwartz: “Uber den Tod der Sohne Zebedaei. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Johannesevangeliums” (= Gesammelte Schriften V, 1963,48-123). It is cited in a 1991 chapter by Luise Abramowski, “The ‘Memoirs of the Apostles’ in Justin” pp.331-332 published in “The Gospel and the Gospels” ed. Peter Stuhlmacher. 

In other words, how is a historian to know how to read a document like the Gospel of Mark? Especially one like the Gospel of Mark because even its very genre — and genre is generally a guide to the implied intent (one cannot be so confident as to claim it is always a sure guide to real intent) of the author — is debatable? How do we know it was meant to be read literally or symbolically? (Origen at times thought the latter.)

Let’s look at this Gospel a bit more. One of the basics a historian must establish in order to know how to approach a source is its date. But the way Mark is dated by most theologians is entirely circular. They rely entirely on internal referents within the Gospels narrative itself. Yet look again at those basics listed by the advisers of historians:

The identifications [of time, place, author] provided by the source itself are . . . often misleading. . . . [S]ometimes authors are deliberately faking a source, sometimes they are disguising the real place and date of issuance. . . .

The history of classical literature has gradually learned to work with the notions of the literary-historical legend, novella, or fabrication . . . . It is no different with Christian authors.

When theology is confused with history

The Hitler Diaries looked for all the world like they were written in the 1940s. Neo-Babylonian scribes doctored “early” chronicles in order to fill a gap between the earliest period of Mesopotamian history and the rise of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty (Van Seters, 2009). The late first or early second century novel Chaereas and Callirhoe by Chariton was sprinkled with a mix of historical and fictional persons for the sake of verisimilitude. The narrative in Mark sets Jesus in the time of Pilate and scholars interpret Mark 13 as providing evidence the Gospel was composed around the year 70. But all of this is based entirely on the narrative within the Gospel itself. What controls are there to assure the historian that these referents do indeed relate to external realities? Yes we have the external testimonies and archaeological evidence of a conquest of Jerusalem. Two conquests, actually, separated by 60 years. If the narrative is suggestive that Jerusalem had not yet fallen, but was about to, or that it had just fallen and people were awaiting the imminent return of Jesus, we need to ask if we have any controls or reason to believe that this was indeed the reality of the social setting of the composition of the Gospel or whether this was an intentional narrative design that takes on a different meaning in another social and theological-literary context or even in the context of the second destruction of Jerusalem. Only by external controls can the historian know how to assess the self-testimonies of documents.

Some signs of hope from the neighbours

I mentioned above that some Old Testament scholars have moved on from the circularity that once bedeviled their field. Recently I posted some basics on how to date a document scientifically by one of the leaders in that development. New Testament scholars have not yet begun to move in this direction with respect to the canonical literature. The epistles of Paul are taken at face value, despite warnings being issued at least since 1904 and despite Rosenmeyer informing scholars that epistolary fictions were a popular and formally taught art-form of the time. I am not saying that Paul’s epistles are not genuine. I think they are genuine and from the mid first century but the question is by no means fatuous. My reasons for thinking they are genuine do not rely on the self-testimony of the letters themselves, however. That is naivety that has no place in the lessons of either Howell and Prevenier or Vansina. And though I think the evidence for authenticity outweighs any other, the arguments for a second century provenance are nonetheless valid because they are in fact a “scientific dating” as outlined in the link in the first sentence of this paragraph. That is, the arguments are examples of sound historical methods that begin with the most secure (externally attested) data as the starting point.

Dismissal is easier than reflection and engagement

But all of this is blithely brushed aside as “misrepresentation” by some theologians who mistakenly think they are doing history. Social anthropologist Philippe Wajdenbaum, I suspect, would argue that all they are doing is constructing new versions of the Bible myths (rationalized versions):

The question of the provenance of Mark is a relatively simple one, as long as one does not wish to get caught up in fruitless debates about who the precise author may or may not have been. Is this a work that provides evidence about the views of the same religious phenomenon we learn of through the epistles Paul wrote a decade earlier? Does it show evidence of being involved in a radical revision of what that group believed? Or is it an expression of the same religious movement and its views – not necessarily precisely the views of Paul or anyone else, but part of a common phenomenon with identifiable shared beliefs and practices? (McGrath)

In another comment the same theologian said that “Christianity” was the provenance as if that’s all we need to know — and as if ancient Christianity can only mean one thing!

How can we answer those questions with any degree of objective confidence (without circular argument) without first knowing something of the culture, interests, beliefs of the group or person from which the Gospel was produced? And how can we know where to look for that group unless we have some idea of the time period they occupied? The flippancy quoted here is totally reliant upon a naive and tendentious reading of the texts themselves. It assumes the texts can be interpreted and understood at their face value as seen through the eyes of the cultural and religious traditions of the scholars. Sure those scholars study to grasp what they can of “original meanings” of certain words and concepts, but all of those findings are contextualized within the fundamental hypothesis of Christian origins that is nothing more than a distilled or slightly modified version of the religious myth itself. For most this hypothesis is built around the “great man” view of history; for others the same hypothesis is structured around economic and social causes, etc. External controls are not considered necessary because the self-testimony of the texts is so supportive of all they believe about them and Christian origins to begin with.

That is, genuine historical inquiry, taking a step outside our cultural heritage and belief systems for a moment and applying rigorous historical methods in our approach to source documents, is not considered necessary. Those who do are often enough ridiculed. So the institutional pressure to continue with the tail-chasing status quo continues.

The above was my initial comment and in hindsight I see I was confusing two different concepts at the time. Dr McGrath of course is assuming in his questions that everything points to a historicity of the Christian myth — whether Mark’s or Paul’s — and it was on that understanding that I made my above remarks. But more importantly, provenance is not about whether two texts overlap in their concepts, beliefs, etc. but how we are to interpret the contents of those narratives, whether expressed in epistles or novels. What I have argued is that given that we cannot know provenance all that we can therefore do legitimately is compare the texts as literature and theologies. From there we can understand something — even if very limited — of the thought world, the beliefs, expressed in those texts. But we cannot know from this whether or not the self-witnesses of a text is true or how the authors always understood or meant it. Many studies address the difference between implied and real narrator/author, for example. The mere existence of a narrative in a community is not evidence that the narrative has a genuine historical factness about it. That’s why external attestation and provenance are essential for knowing how to interpret texts and to gain some idea of what motivated or interested the (real, not implied) authors and why they wrote as they did.

http://vridar.wordpress.com/?blackout_preview=full

http://vridar.wordpress.com/?blackout_preview=full

Oral performance of an epic poem.

Contrary to the understanding of a few theologians oral historian Jan Vansina does NOT use the “criterion of embarrassment” in the same way as a number of historical Jesus scholars do. His discussion of embarrassment in fact supports the arguments of those scholars who argue the criterion is invalid!

I asked Dr McGrath for a page reference in Vansina that supported his claims that historical Jesus scholars draw from oral history their justification for their use of the “criterion of embarrassment”. He replied with Oral History, pp. 83, 84. (I can tell immediately he has read this book because he did not put its title in quotation marks — a sure giveaway.) This in fact is not the same book I read or quoted from but another, more recent, one (2009), much of which is available online. So I replied with this:

Thank you for the reference. This is not from the book or edition I was quoting or the one I have at hand (1985) but your reference refers to the title available online. . . . [I leave interested readers to consult the relevant pages I discuss below for themselves.]

You would have been more informative in your post had you pointed out that what Vansina is saying on page 83 of the work you cite is that an oral tradition is unlikely to have been falsified if it runs counter to the purpose for which the tradition is told. Yet on the other hand, in the same paragraph, Vansina goes on to explain that it is possible to argue that the tales do not run so very counter to the purpose for which they are told, and cites their supernatural or narrative coherence. And on page 82 Vansina explains how important it is to know thoroughly the details of the cultural interests of the people and their institutions where the oral tradition is found. So how does one know the purposes for which the oral tradition is told? Answer: By knowing the provenance of the oral tradition. That is, knowing (Vansina would say knowing intimately) the values and interests of those who are performing the tradition.

This is exactly the argument against the validity of the criterion of embarrassment. Scholars who critique the validity of this criterion point out that we do not know the details — the provenance — of the original composition of, say, the baptism of Jesus. What was clearly embarrassing for later authors and institutions may not have been embarrassing for the original composers of a tale.

But thank you for a stimulating exchange.

But reading Vansina’s reference to logical inferences from embarrassment in the larger context of his entire argument — not just cherry picking convenient references from a page or two, but understanding those pages in the context of the argument of the entire book — makes it as clear as day that Vansina is assessing historical probability with the aid of standard historical “tools” commonly applied by historians generally. Vansina is relying on the very same “tools” as used by historians dealing with written sources. Embarrassment is not one of these tools but is an inference drawn from the application of the basic tools. I quoted his plain statement to this effect in my previous post and repeat it here:

The task of a historian working with written documents starts when he or she finds or takes up such a document and begins to read it. . . . Hence the classical rules of evidence are straightforward. What is this document both physically and as a message? Is it an original, written by the person who composed it? Is it authentic, truly what it claims to be or is it a forgery? Who wrote it, when, or where? Once the answers to these questions are known an internal analysis of the content can proceed. . . . So the analysis of the document itself comes first. (p. 33, Oral Tradition As History, my emphasis throughout)

But to historians dealing with oral tradition the situation is very different. . . . . The questions now are: what is the relationship of the text to a particular performance of the tradition involved and what is the relationship of that performance to the tradition as a whole? Only when it is clear how the text stands to the performance and the latter to the tradition can an analysis of the contents of the message begin. This means that the questions of authenticity, originality, authorship, and place and time of composition must be asked at each of these stages. (pp. 33-34)

And as I remarked then, I make the same comment here:

Well, that looks to me as if Vansina is saying that the classical rules of evidence are not “refined” but that they must be applied more often and at more stages of the historical inquiry.

And in Vansina’s more recent (2009) book this is the exact principle he applies to assess historical probability. It is by the researcher knowing the answers to questions such as authenticity, originality, authorship, place and time of composition/performance that he can draw an informed inference from what might be “embarrassing”. That is, how can the historian know what would be embarrassing unless he or she first knows well the people sustaining the tradition and the specific cultural functions the tradition served?

And this is exactly the point made by Howell and Prevenier in their discussion of how historians ought to approach their sources — whether written or oral — and I quote again from my earlier post:

In order for a source to be used as evidence in a historical argument, certain basic matters about its form and content must be settled. 

[T]he source must be carefully located in place and time: when was it composed, where, in what country or city, in what social setting, by which individual? Are these apparent “facts” of composition correct?  — that is, is the date indicated, let us say, in a letter . . . the date it was actually written? Is the place indicated within the source the actual place of composition? . . . .

[T]he source must be checked for authenticity. Is it what it purports to be . . . Can we tell . . . that the document was not composed where it presents itself as having been composed? . . . . (pp. 43-44)

That is, knowing the provenance is the starting point when assessing any source for its historical worth.

This principle is in fact an application of the most fundamental requirement of all: the need for external attestation:

Historians can place trust in oral sources only to the extent that they can be verified by means of external evidence of another kind, such as archaeological, linguistic, or cultural. (p. 26)

Provenance HAS to be established by some means of external attestation for the simple reason that

The identifications [of time, place, author] provided by the source itself are . . . often misleading. . . . [S]ometimes authors are deliberately faking a source, sometimes they are disguising the real place and date of issuance. (p. 63)

Our parents warned us when we were little children not to believe everything we hear. Don’t take one person’s word for something. Check things out. Don’t have to be no scholar to follow that rule.

So what does this have to do with the “criterion of embarrassment”?

Everything. It renders the criterion invalid as a tool as used by historical Jesus scholars as a number of such scholars have made very clear.

The simple fact is that we have no evidence whatever to support a presumption that the author of the first gospel was embarrassed by the things that troubled later Christians.

Charles Guignebert, 1956, points out that the only grounds for accepting the baptism of Jesus as a historical fact is the argument that amounts to the criterion of embarrassment, but at the same time we must recognize that for the original creators of this story there may have been no embarrassment at all:

We must, moreover, observe, on the other hand, that Q, though including the Baptist and his preaching of repentance, does not appear to have mentioned the baptism of Jesus, and that, consequently, it is not unreasonable to hold that the whole legend, in substance as well as in form, came from the Hellenistic community, which might have composed it under the influence of its own liturgy, to represent the ceremonial investiture of Jesus with the Messiahship. (See Reasonably Doubting)

That is, the criterion of embarrassment only works if we know enough about the provenance of the narrative to know that it really was embarrassing to those who composed it.

Burton Mack looks at the original baptism story and sees it as the most “UNembarrassing” product of the special interests of the time:

As the story stands it serves to link Jesus up with a mythic view of Israel’s history and point up the contrast between Jesus and John: Jesus will not baptize with water as John does, but with the spirit. So the lore is mostly legend to confirm Jesus’ importance as a figure of epic proportions.

It belongs to the later layers of Q, composed not much before the time of Mark, and thus represents a stage of reflection where interest in the founder of the Jesus movements gave rise to biographical depiction.

The biographical narratives do not make a set, do not constitute a memory tradition, and cannot be used to reconstruct the life of Jesus. (See More Reasons)

Others have also found plausible explanations — dramatic irony, adoptionist or separationist christologies, Jewish expectation that Elijah would “anoint” the Messiah, and others — for the pious invention of Jesus being baptised: Leif E. Vaage, William Arnal, E. Meyer, Morna Hooker, et al.

Now no doubt many scholars disagree with these explanations. That’s what scholars do. They disagree with one another. Especially in ideologically dominated disciplines like biblical studies. Majority views come and go when their foundations are interpretations and inferences rather than “hard facts”.

So the point is that with just a little effort one does not have to be content with staring blankly and nodding thoughtlessly at a rhetorical question, “Why would anyone make it up?” Recall Daniel Dennett’s maxim:

I advise my philosophy students to develop hypersensitivity for rhetorical questions in philosophy. They paper over whatever cracks there are in the arguments. (Dennett’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, p. 178)

Or more formally, they often are little more than appeals to ignorance.

Fact: we need to know the provenance — the cultural and philosophical matrix — of whoever produced the initial baptism of Jesus narrative if we wish to make any informed assessment of its historicity. And we need the same fundamental knowledge about a text before we can draw any informed inferences from presumed “embarrassment”.

Fact: we do know that whoever wrote the gospels of Matthew and Luke and John were not comfortable with what they read in Mark or knew of the Markan story. But we do not know the origin of Mark’s gospel itself. Early church fathers associated it with a form of Christianity they branded as heretical. Should we take that “tradition” seriously, too, or at least investigate it?

Dr McGrath has since raised another question

Would you care to explain how, and in what sense, we do not know “the values and interests of those who are performing the tradition” in the Gospels?  Or how our comprehension of the context of the Gospels is any less clear, in your view, than the context of an oral tradition for which we only have a contemporary oral performance? It seems that if anything, an ancient recording of an oral tradition provides a serious advantage for the historian – it was fixed in writing much closer to the point of origin than many of the examples that Vansina and others studying contemporary orality consider.

Certainly.

The first question . . .

Would you care to explain how, and in what sense, we do not know “the values and interests of those who are performing the tradition” in the Gospels?

. . . needs a bit of untangling. Firstly, we are not talking about the canonical Gospels, plural. The question is the origin of the narrative and that means our question is directed to the first known written gospel. There is no question that the authors of subsequent Gospels expressed embarrassment over what they saw in Mark.

Secondly, it is a confusion of concepts to relate “those who are performing the tradition” with what we read in the Gospel of Mark. Whitney Shiner and others can write about oral performances of Mark, but the historian is concerned with the origin of the written source.

So scholars speak about performing the narrative of the written Gospel of Mark, not “the tradition in” the Gospel. However, I think Dr McGrath means, if I am not mistaken, those who performed, that is delivered oral performances of, the traditions before they appeared in the written Gospel.

If so, there are several levels at which to respond to this question.

The assumption that there was an oral tradition of the narratives before they appeared in our written canon is just that, an assumption. There is no evidence, no externally attested testimonials, to indicate that there ever were such oral traditions. Indeed, the evidence we do have — the literary evidence of Mark and the literary documents widely known in the relevant time and place — strongly suggests that the author of Mark was creatively adapting stories from other literature. Those who hold to the assumption of an oral tradition sometimes explain these literary borrowings as the language that came naturally to the oral performers, but this is really beginning to go down the path of multiplying hypotheses by hypotheses. Scholars who dare to draw attention to this simple fact of logic are generally in the minority for obvious reasons. But logic and fact are not decided by majority vote from members of seminaries and of what is probably the most ideological faculty in university campuses.

We simply do not know who wrote the Gospel of Mark, where or when or for whom or why. We can guess, speculate, and apply other knowledge to attempt more informed guesses, but until there are new sources uncovered all we will have are ever changing and ever debatable theories.

(Most scholars will insist that the first Gospel should be dated around the year 70 c.e. but this is nothing more than an ideological interpretation that attempts to tie as closely together as possible the internal narrative referents in Mark 13 with the hypothesis of a historical Jesus — another of the narrative referents. This is circular. As I recently posted, the more scientific way of dating Gospels is through external reference and beginning from the point where we have the most secure evidence.)

Moreover, if we assume oral performers of pre-Gospel traditions, we clearly know even less or “just as guess-work-much” about their provenance, their interests, audiences, etc. We simply do not know what such hypothetical people might have thought or intended when they performed Jesus stories. Were they, like Paul’s converts, speaking from spirit-inspired “knowledge” in order to explain why they met for a regular fellowship meal? Were they relaying stories that came to them in relation to preparations for ecstatic experiences at tombs in commemorations of their lost loved ones? Were they mutating or extrapolating from stories of biblical or other heroes? Did they exist? Who can tell?

What Vansina as well as Howell and Prevenier make clear is that one of the most basic principles for historical research is that we MUST know the provenance of sources — both written and oral sources — in order to know how to interpret them. See the previous posts (linked above) where this is all spelled out as part of a course on “how to do history 101″.

There is a third complication, too, but I will address that in response to the final statement below.

The second question . . .

Or how our comprehension of the context of the Gospels is any less clear, in your view, than the context of an oral tradition for which we only have a contemporary oral performance?

. . . is couched in an unsupportable assumptions and curiously overlooks Vansina’s own often repeated explanations.

Vansina makes it abundantly clear that the historian researcher know the contexts in which oral traditions are performed by becoming thoroughly acquainted with the people, their language, their institutions, customs, values, culture. Historians — not even theologians — know anything comparable about the creators and audiences of the first Gospel. Okay, they do know the language(s). And okay, they know other literature that overlaps in certain ways. But everything else is a matter of challengeable hypothesis.

The final statement . . .

It seems that if anything, an ancient recording of an oral tradition provides a serious advantage for the historian – it was fixed in writing much closer to the point of origin than many of the examples that Vansina and others studying contemporary orality consider.

. . . likewise suggests a failure to appreciate Vansina’s larger argument.

Firstly, let’s not overlook that Vansina does also discuss oral traditions of recent origin — a couple of generations, say — comparable to the oral tradition hypotheses of historical Jesus scholars as well as older ones.

Secondly, he writes at length about the problems that arise when the researcher seeks to set an oral performance or content in written form. The problems arise from multiple quarters:

• What exactly will the act of writing down an oral report achieve? Will the tone or other performance features of the performance that are a vital part of conveying the meaning be lost so that a third party reading the words risks experiencing a distorted understanding of what was originally meant?

• Will linguistic subtleties and puns that are clear in an oral performance context within the culture be lost and so render a text that misses much of the original meaning?

• Will the cultural and institutional situations of the performance be lost and so decontextualize the written account and thus affect the way it is understood or interpreted?

• Will the written report be a singular product or will there also be written reports of comparable oral performances by other more or less related peoples in order to convey the richer background and dialectical appreciations of the written tradition?

Was the Gospel author aware of any of these issues and if not, what sorts of assumptions should we bring to the Gospel before we ask how to interpret it?

But there are more serious questions, too:

• What is/was the relationship between the one who was to write down the oral tradition and the oral performer?

• Did the performer know his or her performance was to be written down by an audience member, and if so, did this affect the content and meaning of that was conveyed?

• Did the performer sharply edit out much that would have changed completely what was understood? Or did the performer wax more fulsomely and creatively to show off? Was there any deliberate deception?

• Does the scribe have such an intimate relationship with the people of the oral performers in order to truly understand the context, purpose, etc of the oral performance? How well are the people and their traditions and interests truly understood?

And more still:

• Oral performances are not told for the sake of preserving the historical past for its own sake. Oral performances are always addressing the current needs of the community. Stories that have no relevance in one generation are simply lost to that and all subsequent generations. So we must ask what was the reason — the meaning — of each oral tradition to each subsequent audience? Did it change? How did it change? Was what was written a couple of generations later comparable in meaning to what was there at the beginning?

• (This brings us back to Bultmann and form criticism. If Vansina’s precepts are valid and if the narrative units in the Gospels had a pre-literate oral history, then it follows that form criticism is the most valuable tool for understanding the history of those narrative units.)

• What was the writer looking for or interested in? Was it historical information? If so, how conscious was the writer aware that the oral traditions were not performed to convey historical information for those with an interest in the past but were performed for those who were seeking confirmation of a present need?

• (Again this brings to mind the frequently heard guess as to why the Gospels were first written so late. It is often said that it was persecution that drove them to write things down lest they be lost. But that explanation is not consistent with Vansina’s research about the reasons for oral performances and traditions.)

• If the writer was seeking historical information to record then what measures did he take to check that what he heard really was historical and not fabrication? Vansina explains that this requires external attestation of some kind. Did the writer seek independent corroboration of what he heard? Did any independent corroboration exist or were the traditions entirely the product of a closed group, a kind of secret knowledge?

Now all of these are problems for modern historians of oral history and are discussed by Jan Vansina in his books. But they alert us to potential issues, unknown unknowns, that affect the transition from oral performances to written reports. We simply don’t know who the author of the first Gospel was or what his relationship to hypothetical oral performers might have been.

Dr McGrath’s concluding statement is glib and naive and, given that it presupposes an oral source for the Gospels, begs the question.

Conclusion

The “criterion of embarrassment” only works if we know enough about the provenance of the narrative to know that it really was embarrassing for those who composed it. In fact it is misleading to call it “a tool”. Tools are made to perform a task in a consistent and reliable manner.

All we are talking about is making inferences from what we know about embarrassment as a human condition. We need a secure, solid base from which to draw those inferences. That is where the basic principles explained by Howell & Prevenier as well as Vansina kick in. That secure starting point — the sine qua non from which we begin any interpretation of a document and assessment of it as a historical source — is the externally supported provenance of the source. Without that scholars are just chasing their tails, as Philip R. Davies writes in another context.

.

By the way, Vansina has the scholarly integrity to acknowledge that his own arguments for assessing probability even by these means are more sanguine than some anthropologists would admit. In his 1985 book he particularly addresses the views of T. O. Beidelman who believes nothing of historical worth can be assumed from any oral tradition. Vansina thinks such arguments are too extreme. The point I am making is that Vansina is not necessarily a monolithic and unchallenged authority in studies of oral history and should, like any academic, be questioned, tested, debated. But for purposes of this post, and given I am no expert in oral history and have not read all the to’s and fro’s in the various debates, I am speaking of Vansina’s point of view as one that is entirely supportable.

The same theologian was even kind enough to subsequently recommend that I read a work by oral historian Jan Vansina in order to understand that historians “adapt” or “refine” standard principles in order to make them fit the special requirements where, say, written sources are very scarce. The point of this exercise was for me to learn that if I see theologians using something not exactly the same as I see in other history books, then I was to understand that if historians do not have a rich abundance of written materials they do indeed “refine” or “adapt” principles so that they can work with that scarcity of evidence.

So I did that, too. I chose Jan Vansina’s “Oral Tradition as History” (1985) and his earlier “Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology”.

Before I continue I should say that the idea that any historian “refines” basic methods such as “external attestation” or the need to establish provenance before knowing how to interpret a text for certain types of historical information quite confused me.  My own understanding has always been that historians merely limit and change the questions they can ask so that the tried and true tools they use can still be used validly. They don’t “refine” their tools to enable them to get more answers than the sources would otherwise allow. That has certainly been my understanding as a student of both ancient and modern history. From my experience there is nothing different in principle at all — no refinements or adaptations of what are really basic logical “tools” — but only the fact that historians of ancient times can never hope to know the sorts of details about events or people as they can know for the well-documented recent past.

But the theologian insisted I was in the wrong and that if I read Vansina I would see that historians do indeed “refine” and “adapt” their methods to fit their “needs”. They are applied differently, he has said.

So I approached Vansina with interest to see if there was something I had missed and needed to learn. Here are a few excerpts from what I read.

The task of a historian working with written documents starts when he or she finds or takes up such a document and begins to read it. There is no relation at all between the historian on the one hand and the ready-made document that confronts him or her on the other. Hence the classical rules of evidence are straightforward. What is this document both physically and as a message? Is it an original, written by the person who composed it? Is it authentic, truly what it claims to be or is it a forgery? Who wrote it, when, or where? Once the answers to these questions are known an internal analysis of the content can proceed. As long as they are not known one does not know to what any analysis of content they relate. So the analysis of the document itself comes first. (p. 33, Oral Tradition As History, my emphasis throughout)

But to historians dealing with oral tradition the situation is very different. Some of these are indeed faced with a piece of writing that claims to be the record of a tradition. The usual questions must be asked, but will refer only to the record not to the tradition itself. In most cases, however, the relationship of the historian to the documents is totally different. He or she did not find the piece of writing, but rather created it. He or she recorded a living tradition. The questions now are: what is the relationship of the text to a particular performance of the tradition involved and what is the relationship of that performance to the tradition as a whole? Only when it is clear how the text stands to the performance and the latter to the tradition can an analysis of the contents of the message begin. This means that the questions of authenticity, originality, authorship, and place and time of composition must be asked at each of these stages. (pp. 33-34)

Well, that looks to me as if Vansina is saying that the classical rules of evidence are not “refined” but that they must be applied more often and at more stages of the historical inquiry.

But what if this means we don’t get as much info as we’d like? Surely there must be some “refining” somewhere so we can see something supposedly analogous to the ways historical Jesus scholars do history?

Hence, where writing is widely used, one expects very detailed and very diverse sources of information, which also allow for a very detailed reconstruction of the past. Historians who work with the written sources of the last few centuries in any of the major areas of literacy should not expect that reconstructions using oral materials will yield as full, detailed, and precise a reconstruction, barring only the very recent past. The limitations of oral tradition must be fully appreciated so that it will not come as a disappointment that long periods of research yield a reconstruction that is still not very detailed. What one does reconstruct from oral sources may well be of a lower order of reliability, when there are no independent sources to cross-check, and when structuring and chronological problems complicate the issues. This means that particular research questions remain unsettled for much longer periods of time than when a reconstruction rests on massive and internally independent written evidence. It will take longer to achieve results that are reliable because they are confirmed by other sources. (pp. 199-200)

Now I’m really confused. Perhaps the theologian meant me to read another oral historian and this one, Vansina, is misleading me by saying what I had always thought and understood is correct all along. Methods are not “refined”. It is the questions and expectations of the historian that are refined and adapted to the methods — the methods, the questions asked, remain constant.

But historical Jesus scholars certainly do employ a raft of different methods and questions that are quite alien to other historical studies — or at least the way they are used is quite different.

A professor of the Bible once wrote:

If we dismiss everything that is given such interpretations in ancient texts, we will end up dismissing even those things that have so much evidence supporting them that no one in their right mind would question them.

I replied it was a fallacy to reject or to accept an argument on the grounds that we don’t like or do like its conclusions. Ancient historians, I remarked, have logically coherent and valid reasons for accepting certain ancient sources for certain types of ancient historical inquiry. They do not need to appeal to the consequences to justify their selection of sources.

The professor patiently replied that he was not guilty of a logical fallacy at all. So I asked him:

So, speaking as a historian, on what basis do ancient historians decide which sources are useful for certain types of historical reconstruction — without appealing to the consequent? I think commenters here would appreciate knowing.

He helpfully explained it this way:

Through careful examination.

To cut a long story short the professor eventually explained what this “careful examination” actually entailed. He did explain, most clearly, the methods used by historical Jesus historians and he began by explaining that they are indeed not the same as those used by other historians. Here is his confession:

And of course, let’s not forget the obvious example of historical Jesus research, which because of the fact that there are wackos of all sorts who wish to say every sort of thing possible about Jesus, or even claim he did not exist, [historical Jesus] historians have had to try to come up with objective criteria to defend minimal conclusions about matters that would, if it were any other figure from history, be considered obvious and beyond dispute.

One does wonder why if there were as much evidence for Jesus as for any other figure of ancient times  (e.g. Socrates, Mohammed) the question of Jesus’ historicity would have arisen in the first place. It helps to pull out the ad hominem card and to think of those who do question Jesus’ historicity as evil and dishonest atheists motivated by a mischievous desire to attack Christianity.

And as we saw in my earlier post in this series the methods used by other historians referred to above, at least as set out by Howell and Prevenier, do not support the historical existence of Jesus. So theologians must rely on these those para criteria to defend minimal conclusions. Here is the sum of all that consists of the “careful examination” according to the professor:

Between the evidence from Josephus and Tacitus, the evidence from the fact that some details of geography, architecture and persons are verifiable (one can see a marked contrast with later pseudepigrapha which contain nothing that plausibly fits the time in which they were set; almost all texts get some details wrong, but getting many things right was largely impossible without some reliable sources of information, since there were few records generally accessible to the public, and indeed few records of any sort that would allow one to right [sic] highly accurate historical fiction other than by drawing on actual accounts of the people and places in question, whether oral or written), and the unlikelihood of embarassing [sic] material being invented (Vansina uses that criterion, as I am sure you are aware if you have read the books you claim to have, other than frantically doing so in order to quote them in a comment that is). And so as you can plainly, what is described in Howell and Prevenier is precisely what historians investigating the figure of Jesus do in order to assess the reliability of their written sources.

1. The Gospels could not have got so many geographic and personal names right unless they were writing reliably sourced historical narratives (but see my previous post for how Howell and Prevenier, contrary to the claims of the professor here, dismiss this as a valid method for assessing the historicity or truth of a narrative in a document);
2. The criterion of embarrassment (see almost any other publication by a biblical scholar pointing out the logical flaw in this).

I posted more detail from Vansina in my reply to the professor elsewhere but enough has been covered here to make the point. I might make here just one remark in response to the above quotation on Vansina and the criterion of embarrassment. Vansina was addressing primary sources, oral sources, of known provenance. I pointed out the significant difference of these from what we have available for Christian origins in my earlier post (and see the links below). The difference when it comes to written sources of unknown provenance for unknown audiences and by unknown persons is as stark as day from night. With secondary written sources of unknown provenance the embarrassment is presumed to apply even though we know not who the persons involved were or what they thought. And historians have indeed turned those arguments based on embarrassment on their heads by showing the plausibility that no embarrassment was ever felt in the original sources.

Related articles

• Historicist Misunderstandings — discussion of primary and secondary sources(scienceblogs.com)
• Relevance of Minimalist Arguments — another discussion of primary and secondary sources