Why are there differences in the Gospels? Dr. Timothy McGrew Stand Firm, SWBTS March 24, 2018

Transcription

1 Why are there differences in the Gospels? Dr. Timothy McGrew Stand Firm, SWBTS March 24, 2018

2 [W]hile I respect the learning of the great biblical critics, I am not yet persuaded that their judgement is equally to be respected. C. S. Lewis, Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism

3 Two different worlds

4 Our task today To lay out the contrast between two very different ways of explaining the differences in the Gospels, one recent and the other traditional To explore specific examples in order to illustrate these two methods in action To draw some conclusions regarding the reasonableness of these approaches and their consequences for the historical reliability of the Gospels

5 A medical maxim When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras. The most obvious answer is usually right.

6 A traditional set of tools Incompleteness due to the ordinary causes of difference in any historical accounts Paraphrase recognizable restatement Ordinary variation when narrators tell a story in their own words

7 Some ordinary causes of variation Supplementation one author includes something another left out Simple omission one author leaves something out without any intention of making a heavy point Simple conjunction an author narrates a bunch of events without intending to say that these things happened all at once or in this order

8 Some ordinary causes of variation Saliency a detail or even a whole event is more striking to one author than to another Situational variation one witness is better placed to observe an event or a detail than other witnesses are Source variation one author has a source that includes different details than other authors have

9 An alternative approach: literary devices Transferal When an author knowingly attributes words or deeds to a person that actually belonged to another person Displacement When an author knowingly uproots an event from its original context and transplants it in another Conflation When an author combines elements from two or more events or people and narrates them as one Compression When an author knowingly portrays events over a shorter period of time than the actual time it took for those events to occur

10 A recent book Michael Licona, Why are there Differences in the Gospels? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017) All of these definitions come from p. 20 Unless otherwise noted, all examples from Licona come from this book

11 About these literary devices They are deliberate they are not mere innocent paraphrases they are not the result of inadvertence or apathy The author intends his readers to understand them literally They are invisible There are no clues in the text by which an original reader could have distinguished things that are being narrated with literal accuracy from those that are not They are fictional The elements portrayed by these devices are contrary to fact

12 Taking this idea further Theological redaction editing a story to bring out a theological point Theological embellishment adding things to a story to make a theological point Theological invention making up stories to make a theological point

13 Postmodernism meets Biblical interpretation [T]he ancients were more interested in the moral worth and philosophical value of statements than their logical status, in truth more than facts.... Unfortunately, the debate between socalled conservatives and liberals about authenticity is often conducted in twenty-first-century terms. As one student asked me, Why does John keep fabricating material about Jesus despite his expressed concern for the truth? However, the negative connotation of fabrication is modern. Richard Burridge, Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading (1994), pp

14 An ambiguous slogan What we have in the Gospels is often not the very words of Jesus but rather his very voice not his ipsissima verba, but his ipsissima vox That sounds clever. What does it actually mean?

15 Ipsissima verba vs. ipsissima vox It could mean simply that we do not have Jesus actual words, word-for-word, but rather a translation and/or a recognizable paraphrase of what he actually said That would be the traditional view But the distinction is often used to mean something quite different

16 The critical difference On the literary devices analysis, the authors intend to give their readers an impression they know is not true; these are fictionalizing literary devices On the traditional analysis, there is no implication that the authors intend to give their readers a factually false impression

17 Trad and Neo: comparing the two approaches Trad: a traditional approach, allowing for recognizable restatement, paraphrase, and variation Neo: the new approach, stressing theological redaction and the free use of fictionalizing literary devices

18 The voice at Jesus baptism Mark 1:11 And a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. Matthew 3:17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. The difference here is the shift from the second person to the third person in what the voice says.

19 Trad vs. Neo Trad: This is a minor bit of paraphrasing; there is no reason to invoke any heavy theories about why Matthew states it slightly differently from Mark. Whether or not we have here the ipsissima verba of the voice from heaven, we have the ipsissima vox. Neo: Either Matthew or Mark followed by Luke has changed (i.e., transferred) the addressee to whom God spoke. (Licona, p. 124) So for Neo, this difference in the wording is a deliberate act of alteration on the part of one or another of the Evangelists, and we are therefore obliged to search for a motivation for the change.

20 Jesus words from the cross Mark 15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? John 19:28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), I thirst. The difference here is that John does not have the saying recorded in Mark, and Mark does not have the saying recorded in John.

21 Trad vs. Neo Trad: John and Mark each have unique material. John supplements the accounts of the Synoptics with things he himself recalls instead of repeating what they have. Neo: [T]he Johannine Jesus I thirst (John 19:28) is a dynamic equivalent transformation of My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? To be sure, on the surface, the two utterances do not look at all alike. But beneath the surface, at the deeper level, they bear almost exactly the same meaning. (Daniel Wallace, Ipsissima Vox and the Seven Words from the Cross, 2000, p. 4)

22 (Some of) Wallace s reasons In John, the term for thirst is used five times before this occurrence, and [i]n every instance the meaning is deeper than or other than the literal notion. (Wallace 2000, p. 6) Therefore, A flat reading of the language here not only misses a Leitmotiv in John but also necessarily imports a meaning that is foreign to this evangelist. (Wallace 2000, p. 6) Implication: because he has used thirst in a metaphoric sense, John cannot use it in a literal sense.

23 A very broad view of ipsissima vox N.B. Despite saying that he believes this conjecture, and despite having argued for it strenuously, Wallace throws in a disclaimer: On the analogy of the letter-rating system of the UBS Greek text, I would rate my convictions about this proposal as a C or perhaps a C+. (Wallace (2000), p. 2) Still, to call this ipsissima vox is almost certain to be misleading to the educated layman.

24 More words from the cross Luke 23:46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit! And having said this he breathed his last. John 19:30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. The difference is simply that the utterance recorded in Luke is not found in John, and vice versa.

25 Trad vs. Neo Trad: This is supplementation, possibly due to situational variation. John was at the foot of the cross and probably heard things others did not. (Cf. Matthew and Mark, who speak only of a loud cry at the end) Neo: Once again, John transforms the wording into something more suitable for his portrait. But at bottom the meaning of both final words is largely the same. (Wallace 2000, p. 11) Wallace s reason: John could not have used the saying in Luke in its present form, since the Spirit is given to the disciples in John, not to God. (Wallace 2000, p. 11)

26 Jesus healings Mark 1:34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. Matthew 8:16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. The difference: Mark says Jesus healed many, whereas Matthew says he healed all.

27 Trad vs. Neo Trad: This is a simple rewording each of the Evangelists is telling the story in his own words. There is not even an appearance of contradiction here. Neo: The implication on the reader might be that Jesus was unable to cast them all out;... Why didn t or couldn t Jesus heal all?

28 More Neo Please understand: I am not saying that Matthew and Luke have somehow twisted the Markan statements; rather, it seems that Mark simply leaves things unnuanced and that Matthew and Luke clarify what was implicit in Mark. We should not take these questions lightly; nevertheless, however we resolve such issues it does seem that the synoptists hermeneutical license is outside the scope of typical conservative historiographical definitions. (Dan Wallace, An Apologia for a Broad View of Ipsissima Vox (1999), p. 8)

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30 The I am statements John 8:58 Before Abraham was, I am. The difference: This statement, like some others in John, is not found in the Synoptic Gospels.

31 Trad vs. Neo Trad: Supplementation and saliency. John includes some things he remembers that the other Evangelists do not have. Neo: I think most of these things were not uttered as we find them by the historical Jesus. So I suspect we don t have too much difference on John. My view is the gospel of John is a horse of another color altogether. It s a different genre. (Craig Evans, in public debate with Bart Ehrman on the question of the historical reliability of the Gospels)

32 More of the Ehrman-Evans transcript Ehrman: Okay, so if we toss John out [laughter] Evans: something that isn t exactly historical. You mean it s not historically accurate? Well, if something that isn t exactly historical how is it not historically accurate? It d be like saying You mean the parable, the parable was a fiction Jesus told? It s not historically accurate? So on Evans s view, the fourth Gospel is like a parable in the sense that it is not even intended to be historical.

33 The argument from silence, reconstructed If Jesus really said the I am statements recorded in John, they are some of the most explicit statements regarding his self understanding. But that means they are very important. Therefore, the other Evangelists would have included them in their Gospels. But they didn t. Therefore, Jesus never said them. This is a terribly confused way to reason. Ask me about it afterward if you want to hear a long answer.

34 Breathing on the disciples John 20:22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. The difference: this passage is not found in any of the Synoptic Gospels.

35 Trad vs. Neo Trad: Supplementation. John recalled something that hadn t been recorded in the Synoptic Gospels and decided to include it. Neo: [P]erhaps John, knowing he would not be writing a sequel as had Luke, desired to allude to the event at Pentecost. So he wove mention of the ascension into his communications with Mary Magdalene (20:17) and of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost into his communications with his male disciples (20:22). (Licona, pp ) Translation: John made these scenes up, in part or in whole, because he wanted to mention the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit but was shy about doing it literally and directly.

36 Mary Magdalene s encounter with Jesus John 20 Mary comes back to the tomb after Peter and John have found it empty; she sees two angels, and then Jesus speaks her name. It is clearly the first time she encounters Jesus. Matthew 28 Mary is with a group of women who come to the tomb but find the stone rolled away. Jesus later meets with the group of women on the road.

37 Trad vs. Neo Trad: It looks like Mary may have run to tell Peter and John, leaving the rest of the women to see the angel and to meet with Jesus on the road. Neo: The story differs in Matt. 28: 8 10 in which upon hearing the message of the angel at the tomb, the group of women, which included Mary Magdalene, left quickly with fear and trembling and ran to tell Jesus s disciples. Thus, in Matthew, Mary Magdalene first encountered Jesus when she was running away from the tomb to deliver the angel s message to the disciples, whereas in John it was at the tomb. At minimum, it appears that either Matthew or John has relocated the appearance to Mary Magdalene. This shows the extent to which at least one of the evangelists or the sources from which he drew felt free to craft the story. (Licona, p. 175)

38 People in the real world (Trigger warning: Trad rant) Real people are not chess pieces who stand in place waiting their turn to move. They react to circumstances, sometimes by leaving groups they were originally a part of. We need to interpret the Gospels in the light of what we know about people in the real world. If that knowledge affords us a simple way to harmonize the accounts, it is unreasonable to insist that they contradict one another, much less to invent theories about why it is permissible, in that case, for the Evangelists to tell falsehoods.

39 Doubting Thomas In Luke 24, the term the eleven is used as a designation of the group to whom Jesus appears. But with Judas gone, if Thomas wasn t present as John 20 says then that would make ten, not eleven.

40 Trad vs. Neo Trad: Supplementation. The term the eleven could be a group name (12 minus Judas), like the name of a committee, and hence a name for that group even with Thomas absent. Neo: Either John crafted the Doubting Thomas sequence as a rebuke to those who did not believe, or Luke conflated the first two meetings, one with ten and one with eleven. (Licona opts for the latter, pp )

41 Licona s view of John John often chose to sacrifice accuracy on the ground level of precise reporting, preferring to provide his readers with an accurate, higher-level view of the person and mission of Jesus. (Licona, p. 115)

42 What Neo s view implies Many things that look like straightforward narratives are actually literary inventions and never happened in the way their original readers would have understood them. The evangelists felt free to rework Jesus sayings in ways that an ordinary reader would find unrecognizable, though in the minds of the authors they meant (nearly) the same thing. The Gospel of John is rescued from the charge of historical unreliability by the expedient of saying that it was never intended to be historical in the first place.

43 More things called into question Did John the Baptist call himself the voice of one crying in the wilderness, or did John fictionally attribute that saying to him by redaction from the synoptic Gospels? Did John the Baptist say that he himself bore record that Jesus was the Son of God? Did Jesus show his disciples his side, or did John substitute his side for his feet? Did Mark deliberately suppress the conversion of the thief on the cross in order to make Jesus appear to have been rejected by all? Did John deliberately change the day of the crucifixion to make a theological point?

44 More redactive fog Did John make up a Temple cleansing early in Jesus ministry (this is really what it amounts to for John to move the Temple cleansing) in order to make a theological point? Does Luke put all of the events of Jesus resurrection on Easter Sunday? Did the appearances of Jesus to his disciples in Jerusalem (recorded in John and Luke) occur, or did the first appearance occur in Galilee?

45 Still more fog Did Matthew make up an extra demoniac and/or an extra blind man in an incident where they were not present in order to compensate for not telling different healing stories? Did Matthew invent a doublet incident in which Jesus heals two blind men early in his ministry in order to create a (fictional) healing of blindness to which Jesus could be made to allude in laying to rest the doubts of John the Baptist about his Messiahship? Did the disciples dispute about who would be the greatest on the night of the Last Supper, or did Luke invent the connection between this incident (which he took from a different time recorded in Mark) and the Last Supper and redact Jesus words of rebuke accordingly to make it seem to fit with the context of the Last Supper?

46 Why are there differences in the Gospels? Because honest people who are reporting things they really saw and heard will write them up in different ways and remember or emphasize different details. Because two people telling the same story will often tell it in their own words. Because most people who are remembering what someone said even the same day will typically give a recognizable paraphrase rather than memorizing it word-for-word.

47 A medical maxim, refined When you hear hoof beats, and you know there are horses nearby, don t insist on looking for zebras.

48 A reasoned response Because the consequences of this view are serious, we cannot afford to let it pass without a close examination of its grounds. The seriousness of the consequences is not by itself a sufficient reason to reject the view. It should be rejected because it is not the most reasonable explanation of the facts.