Paul Tobin Responds to The Infidel Delusion (Part 2)
Part 1 can be found here. Quote of the day from Paul Tobin below:
From Paul Tobin in Response to Steve Hays:
21. Hays then turns to my comparison of the virginal conception with pagan myths and legends.
(i) His first critique is that the parallels “don‘t involve a virginal conception. Rather, they involve a god who impregnates a woman by sexual intercourse.”
Hays seems to have missed my main point, which was that the culture of those times require that “[g]reat men must have their greatness injected into their DNA from the time they were conceived. Thus the idea of conception by gods, either virginally or via some form of unusual intercourse was a common element in the stories told about them.” [1]
Thus we would expect that stories about Jesus birth would incorporate some element of this cultural theme. The cultures surrounding the early Christians would not have been impressed with any lesser form of conception. Since the stories told in Matthew and Luke conforms to such cultural expectations, we have every reason to doubt their historicity.
ii) Hays second point that “Matthew and Luke are written from a Jewish perspective, not a pagan perspective” does not make his case any stronger. After all, December 25th was the date of the birthday of many Pagan gods (i.e. Dionysus, Adonis and Horus) yet early Christianity, which was certainly anti Pagan, had no problems making it the birthday of Jesus as well. [2]
iii) Then Hays points to unreferenced “other miraculous birth narratives in Scripture” as providing literary parallels to the virgin birth of Jesus. Presumably, he is referring to women like Sarah (Genesis 17:15-21; 21:1-3), Leah (Genesis 29:30-32), Rebecca (Genesis 25:21), Rachel (Genesis 30:22), Hannah (Samuel 1:10-11, 19-20) and Samson’s unnamed mother (Judges 13). But are these really closer parallels than the pagan stories specifically its major theme –conception by a god? In none of these Old Testament stories was God the direct agency of the birth. In all cases normal sexual intercourse between two humans beings were assumed, God merely “opened the womb” of these old and / or barren women to help the conception – like a heavenly fertility doctor. The virgin birth of Matthew and Luke has God as the direct agency of the conception of Jesus, something we see in the pagan stories as well. The main theme, that a god fathered a child, is one that the stories of Matthew and Luke share with the pagan myths not with the Old Testament tales.
iv) As for the “opposing literature”, again Hays cites an evangelical work (J.G. Machen) and an article by a theologian, C.E.B. Cranfield, whose understanding of the historical method is suspect. After admitting that there is “no possibility of any one’s being able to prove the historicity of the Virgin Birth,” Cranfield went on to assert that “no proof of its non-historicity has been produced”[3] forgetting that the burden of proof has to fall on the party that makes an incredible claim.
22. Next Hays tries to take me to task for stating that the massacre of the innocents by Herod (Matthew 2:16-18) is not historical. His defense? That this is an argument from silence.
Since this red herring is raised very often by evangelicals, let me state unequivocally here – when done properly, an argument from silence is a legitimate form of historical reasoning. An argument from silence can be used to argue for the occurrence of an event despite the silence of the sources [4] or it can be used to argue for the non-occurrence of a purported event.[5] In the current case, one can easily claim that it is evangelicals such as Hays who are arguing from Josephus’ silence to the historicity of the event. For Josephus’ silence is explained by the claim that the event is a “minor one” that was missed by the Jewish historian. Yet was the event “minor”? Matthew certainly did not mean for his readers to take this atrocity as a minor one, as Edwin D. Freed noted, the massacre was:
Of course, one always prefers positive evidence, but in many cases, as Collingwood rightly noted, historians and archaeologists simply have no choice but to deduce information from silence. Howard and Pervernier noted[7] that when we face such incidence in our sources we have to ask the following questions:
Josephus recounted in detail the crimes committed by Herod in his final years of Herod in “Jewish War” and, especially, in “Antiquities of the Jews.” Given below is a list of the crimes of Herod towards the end of his life as reported by the Jewish historian:
Let us summarize, Josephus has every reason to report the massacre of the children had it occurred (he was a Pharisee and the mistress of his target reader was a Hasmonean –both enemies of Herod), he had the occasion to do it (his books, which provide details of the life and death and Herod) and he would very likely had had access to information on the paedo-cide had it actually happened (he had multiple sources and he lived in Jerusalem for close to three decades). Based on these considerations[10] most scholars and historians conclude that the massacre of the innocents probably never happened.[11]
23. In stating that “it wasn‘t God‘s intention to avoid the massacre in general”, Hays have completely misunderstood the issue I raised regarding theodicy (the so-called “problem of evil”). Namely, if God is all good, all knowing and all powerful, why does he allow evil to happen? Hays is simply shrugging his shoulders and saying “God is as God does”. In other words, in Hays’ own view (unexamined, from the looks of it), his God is that of a powerful being who does not really care that the children in Bethlehem will be slaughtered by Herod’s men and does what he wants.[12] To many scholars, this issue is, of course, a “problem” in the sense that it is something that needs to be explained.[13]
24. Hays objects to my pointing out that many scholars consider Matthew’s nativity to be based largely on Old Testament accounts, by merely stating: “The nature and relevance of “Midrash” is widely disputed.” Keeping in line with the fact that his “standard works” on archaeology of the Levant are all evangelical ones, his one lone citation of this “wide dispute” comes from a book edited by two evangelicals!
25. The next topic is the Lukan account of the census by Quirinius. Luke 2:1 had claimed that it was a world-wide census. Yet there was never any world-wide (or “empire-wide”) census under Caesar Augustus. Hays admits that “Luke‘s statement is imprecise” about the census being world-wide. Refusing to admit that this “imprecision” is a mistake and calling it a “hyperbole” for rhetorical effect, he then claimed that “Luke‘s original audience would appreciate that fact.” My question to him is simple – how does he know that ““Luke‘s original audience would appreciate that fact.” My question is rhetorical, of course; Hays does not, and could not know, what Luke’s original audience would have “appreciated.” He is just using this to save his beloved doctrine of biblical inerrancy – rather unconvincingly.
Hays quoted Stanley Porter’s paper in an attempt to shore up his claim that Luke’s account may be historical. Yet if one reads Porter’s conclusion, it is obvious that the best case he could made was that Luke’s detail may correspond to the Roman census in 6/7 CE - 10 years after the birth of Jesus! As for a census during the time of Herod, all Porter could say was “we simply do not know when or have any determinative papyrological evidence that he [Herod] did.”[14]
Finally despite calling my showing the problem with the Quirinius census vis-à-vis Luke’s nativity account “stock objections” – Hays completely ignored the next two pages of my chapter in which I showed in detail why the evangelical “stock reply” of an earlier census under the same Quirinius is impossible. Should I take his silence as implicit acceptance of the failure of the evangelical case here?
ON PROPHECIES
Before we proceed to the next few sections –which deal with fake and failed prophecies – it is important to take a step back and look at the issue of prophecy and the claims made of it by evangelicals. In popular books such as Josh McDowell’s “Evidence that Demands and Verdict” and Lee Strobel’s ‘The Case for Christ” much is make of prophecies –in particular the so-called messianic prophecies - as “evidence” for the truth of Christian claims. It is claimed that the prophecies about Jesus are so many and so accurate that they could only point to him as the messiah. [15] Thus here we have a claim that is supposed to convince outsiders, people such as myself. Keep this fact in mind as we go through the verbal gymnastics Hays uses to try and defend these prophecies.
26. The first messianic prophecy I noted was that of Matthew 2:14-15. Matthew treated the return of the family of Jesus as fulfillment of the prophecy in Hosea:
Hay’s reply? “This is a case of typology.” And that’s it! I shake my head in wonderment when I see the evangelical mind at work. Indeed, what Hays and his evangelical sources calls this “typology”, mainstream critical scholars call “quoting out of context.” Here is what Robert Miller, a New Testament scholar and a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, wrote:
Let me repeat the point I made above. The claim that the details of Jesus’ life is supposed to prove to skeptics that Jesus was the messiah. How does calling an obvious non-prophecy a “typology” help this attempt along in any way?
27. Hays tried to defend the non-prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 but stating that although ”almah” does not mean virgin it could mean so. [18] Such an explanation does not hold water. There exists a perfectly good word for virgin in Hebrew –“bethulah”. Had Isaiah wanted to make clear in 7:14 that the prophecy is regarding the mode of conception, he would have used “bethulah” here. That he did not, means that the prophecy was not about the manner of conception. Indeed let as look at the whole passage in its context (Isaiah 7:10-17):
Hays then quotes a convoluted passage from yet another evangelical apologist which boils down to the author postulating two layers to the passage: the first one which describes the times of King Ahaz and another obscure one which “seems to belong to the undated future.” Yet the presence of this “second layer” of meaning is a mere supposition made to save the prophecy.
Needless to say non-evangelical scholars do not share such an obviously apologetic view. Let us look at some comments from scholars about this issue, the first in question & answer format from renowned New Testament scholar, John Dominic Crossan:
Let me summarize the case, the passage in Isaiah 7 talks about a prophecy made for the near future (the fate of King Ahaz) it says nothing about the virgin birth. What the evangelicals such as Hays and his sources are saying is that “well, if you squint hard enough, forget the fact that ‘almah’ does not explicitly mean virgin and read ‘deeper’ (I.e. ignore its actual clear cut meaning) into the text – you can actually ‘see’ a prophecy of Jesus’ virgin birth”. Needless to say serious New Testament scholars do not share this views and thinks that Isaiah 7:14 does not refer to Jesus’ virgin birth and that the whole passage has been taken out of context by Matthew to make it ”fit” as a prophecy about Jesus.
28. Next Hays turn to my note that the prophecy in Isaiah 19:5-7 – that the river Nile will dry up – has never been fulfilled.
It is quite interesting that he attempts two mutually contradictory explanations for this. First (i) he tries to argue that these verses are not to be taken literally and that they are merely “poetic imagery”. Then, just to cover all his bases, he noted that [in (ii) & (iii)] that the passages could be referring –literally this time! –either to a “temporary national disaster” or to the drying up of the irrigation canals or distributaries in the delta rather than the Nile itself.
That he suggested (ii) & (iii) means that the “poetic imagery” is merely an ad hoc attempt to “solve” the problem of the non-fulfillment of the prophecy. Where there is poetic imagery, the context is quite obvious – like when Isaiah compares Egypt to a “drunken man staggering in his vomit.” (Isaiah 19:14) In the case of the drying up of Nile we get a literal follow up of the consequences of such a disaster in the verse following Isaiah 19:5. As a result of this drying “The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away.” (Isaiah 19:6) The sown fields will be dry (Isaiah 19:7) and “the fishermen will lament” (Isaiah 19:8) because you can’t fish in dried up rivers.
The suggestion that the drying of the Nile is a figurative description for economic decay does not hold water. Since there is a literal description of economic decay (dried fields, extinct fishing industry etc) as a direct consequence of the drying river. There is nothing in the passage to points to the idea of a drying Nile being “poetic imagery.”
His literal explanations fails as well. The passage was clearly referring to the disastrous effects of the drying of the river. A drying up of tributaries or irrigation canals would not have dried up all the streams and sown fields and caused fisherman to lament! As for a “temporary national disaster” I think Hays knows by now that non-evangelicals demand evidence before accepting any assertions or suggestions. Since Hays offer no historical evidence, we can safely reject his suggestion.
29. As for Isaiah’s failed prediction of the Damascus ceasing to be a city forever (17:1-2) Hays invokes poetry once again (“homonymic trope”). He quotes yet another evangelical apologist who speculated that due to the use of some word play between “from being a city” (moir) and “a heap” (moa), the “message” Isaiah presents should not be taken literally. Instead of complete destruction, we are told that all the prophecy meant was that the city will be left without power and influence.
However, just because some poetic device is being used does not automatically mean that the literal meaning is to be abandoned. For instance, we are told in Genesis 17:19 that God named Abraham’s and Sara’s son Isaac (Hebrew - Yitzchaq) because Abraham had earlier laughed (Hebrew - tzachaq) at the suggestion that his aged wife could become pregnant. Are we to conclude that the story is not to be taken literally because of the presence of this wordplay between Yitzchak and tzachak?
Indeed, regardless of the play with words, mainstream scholars understand this prediction literally. Commenting on verse 17:1-3, this is what Brevard Childs, Professor of Divinity at Yale University wrote:
Let us look at his first defense, that the prophecy is a “conditional one.” of course, there are conditional prophecies – prophetic warnings as it were – in the Old Testament. [27] Is this particular prophecy in Ezekiel an example of this? The answer is clearly “no.” In Ezekiel 26, the tone is one of judgment and condemnation – there is no talk to conditions here.
Ezekiel 26:1-4
31. Next Hays tackles the failed prophecy of Ezekiel 29:8-12 where the prophet predicted that Egypt will be a place of desolation and waste, that it won’t be inhabited for forty years and that Egyptians will be scattered through various nations in a Diaspora.
Hays reply? Oh, it’s the prophet taking “poetic license” which involves “an element rhetorical exuberance”. In other words, one shouldn’t take this too literally.
This is, of course, standard modus operandi of evangelicals, when the clear sense of a passage reveals the Bible is wrong, mistaken or inaccurate - invoke poetry! He has done this earlier of course, when Luke’s claim that the census was “worldwide” is pointed out to be mistaken, Hays says it’s “hyperbole!” (25); when it is pointed out that Isaiah’s prophecy of the Nile drying up has never been fulfilled, Hays cries “poetic imagery!”(28); when it is pointed out that Isaiah made yet another failed prediction, this time regarding Damascus, Hays exclaims “homonymic trope!” (29); and now its “rhetorical exuberance!.”
To show the baseless, ad hoc, nature of Hays’ apologetics, consider this passage from Deuteronomy 28:63b-68:
Now, let us look at the passage in question in Ezekiel 29:8-12:
32. Another failed prediction of Ezekiel is that Nebuchadnezzar with conquer Egypt (29:19-20). Hays accused me of utilizing “an argument from silence” and of “selective skepticism” – in what context, I am not clear. Then he cites some sources showing that Nebuchadnezzar “marched against Egypt” or “attacked the Egypt of Pharaoh Amasis in 568 BC.”
This apologetic attempts amounts to shifting Ezekiel’s prophecy into poetic “soft focus” again. For Ezekiel 29:19-20 did not merely predict that Nebuchadnezzar will merely “march against” or “attack” Egypt, he predicted that the Babylonian king will conquer it.
That Nebuchadnezzar launched an attack against the outskirts of Egypt is historically probable but there is certainly no evidence that he conquered it. This is what Georges Roux, an archaeologist, says about the evidence:
33. Hays then moves on to the failed prophesy of Jeremiah. I had noted that Jeremiah 36:30 prophesied that Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, shall have no successor. Yet 2 Kings 24:6 says he was succeeded by his son, Jehoiachin.
Calling my statement “deceptive”, Hays then quotes an evangelical apologist[31] which states that “Jehoiachin’s succession was not a valid one but only a token one”! Why was it not valid? “[B]ecause he was immediately besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, surrendered in three months, and then went into exile.”
The only sense I can make of this apologetic is that Hays is claiming that the reign of Jehoiachin was too short (3 months) to be valid. Since when did length of reign become a retroactive judgment on whether the investiture of the monarch is valid? It doesn’t. There were plenty of Judean and Israelite kings who had short reigns. The Israelite kings Zimri, Zechariah and Shallum reigned for 7 days, 6 months and 1 month respectively (I Kings 16:20; 2 Kings 15:8; 15:13). The Judean king Jehoahaz reigned for 3 months (2 Kings 23:31). Is Hays saying that the investiture of these kings were “invalid” as well?
If we look at 2 Kings 24:6, it does not make any mention about the appointment of Jehoiachin being “invalid” or a mere “token”:
To be continued…
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[1] The Christian Delusion: p. 158
[2] Robert M. Price, “The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man”, Prometheus Books 2003 pp.44-45
[3] C.E.B. Cranfield, “On Romans” T&T Clark 1998 p. 151
[4] Martha Howell & Walter Pervenier, “From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods” Cornell University Press 2001 p. 74
[5] R.G. Collingwood, “The Idea of History” Oxford University Press 2000 p. 388-390
see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_silence
[6] Edwin R. Freed, “The Stories of Jesus’ Birth:A Critical Introduction” Sheffield Academic Press 2001 p.102
[7] Howell and Pervenier “From Reliable Sources” p.74 – the example given here (Yitzak Shamir’s interview on Belgian TV and the slaughter of Palestinians in Beirut in 1982) is that of an information that was purposely suppressed. There line of questioning works the other way as well, that of the actual non-occurrence of the event.
[8] Luckily for the people, his order was not followed through after he died. (Antiquities 17:8:2)
[9] Raymond E. Brown “The Birth of the Messiah” Doubleday 1993 p. 226 n34
[10] And the fact that it has uncanny similarities to the story of the Pharaoh ordering the death of all Jewish male babies in Exodus 1:15-16.
[11] Brown, “The Birth of the Messiah” p.613
Don Cuppitt & Peter Armstrong, “Who Was Jesus?” BBC Books 1977 p.46
Bart Ehrman, “God’s Problem: How The Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer” HarperOne 2008 p.103
Freed, “The Stories of Jesus’ Birth” p.102
Robert Funk & The Jesus Seminar, “The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do” HarperSanFrancisco 1998 p.509
Gerd Lüdemann, “Virgin Birth? The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus” Trinity Press 1998 p.86
Steve Mason, “Josephus and the New Testament” Hendrickson 1992, p.97
Price, “The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man”, pp.65-66
Uta Ranke-Heinemann, “Putting Away Childish Things” HarperSanFrancisco 1995 pp.28-30
E.P. Sanders, “The Historical Figure of Jesus” Penguin 1993 p.87
[12] In this sense Hays’ God is actually more like the God of the Muslims where morality is simply defined as what God wills. (Robert R. Reilly, “The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis” ISI Books 2010)
[13] Ehrman, “God’s Problem” pp.103-104
Lüdemann, “Virgin Birth?” p.81
Ranke-Heinemann, “Putting Away Childish Things” p.30
[14] Stanley Porter, “The Reasons for the Lukan Census” A. Christophersen et al. eds. Paul, Luke and the Graeco Roman World (Sheffield 2002) p. 188
[15] Josh McDowell, “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” Here’s Life Publishers 1979 p.141-178
Lee Strobel, “The Case for Christ” Zondervan 1998 pp. 230-252
[16] Hays was discussing four prophecies in this section of his book. The Hosea 11:1 is one of the “three other prophecies”.
[17] Robert J. Miller “Born Divine: The Birth of Jesus & Other Sons of God” Polebridge Books 2003 pp.169-170
[18] “Almah”simply means a young woman who may or may not be a virgin.
[19] Tobin, “The Rejection of Pascal’s Wager” pp.320-325
[20] Conditional on Ahaz heeding the word of God. In the actual event he did not and paid a heavy price for it (2 Kings 16:5-9).
[21] James L. Kugel “How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now” Free Press 2007 pp.549
see also Brown “The Birth of the Messiah” p. 146-148
[22] John Dominic Crossan, “Who Is Jesus?” HarperPaperbacks 1996 p.21
[23] Brown “The Birth of the Messiah” p.146
[24] Apart from Kugel, Crossan and Brown referenced in the text, here are other references by scholars who share this position:
Freed, “The Stories of Jesus’ Birth” p.72-73
Charles W. Hedrick, “When History and Faith Collide: Studying Jesus” Hendrickson 1999 p.9
Miller “Born Divine” pp.169-170
Price, “The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man” p.31
Ranke-Heinemann, “Putting Away Childish Things” p.45
John S. Spong, “Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Virgin Birth…”HarperSanFrancisco 1992 pp. 74-79
Clayton Sullivan, “Rescuing Jesus from the Christians” Trinity Press International 2002 pp.38-39
[25] Brevard S. Childs, “Isaiah: A Commentary” Westminster John Knox 2000 p.136
[26] Most historians and archaeologists refer to this Babylonian king more accurately as “Nebuchadrezzar II”
[27] The case of Isaiah 7 is actually one such example. If King Ahaz had trusted in his God, the prophecy of “milk and honey” would have been fulfilled.
[28] Of course, scholars nowadays know this is not really a prediction at all. That section of the Bible is normally attributed to a post exilic editor known as Dtr2. (see Richard Elliot Friedman, “The Bible with Sources Revealed” HarperSanFrancisco 2003, pp. 5 & 354) In other words, the passage in Deuteronomy is a prediction after the fact.
[29] Georges Roux, “Ancient Iraq” Penguin Books 1980 p.350
[30] J.E. Manchip White “Ancient Egypt: Its Culture and History” Dover Publications, 1970 p.200
Donald B. Redford (ed) “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt: Volume I (A-F)” Oxford University Press 2000, pp.66-67
[31] His other quote from Feinberg’s “Jeremiah” makes even less sense in the context of his criticism since Feinberg is merely describing the turn of events.
I shake my head in wonderment when I see the evangelical mind at work.
From Paul Tobin in Response to Steve Hays:
21. Hays then turns to my comparison of the virginal conception with pagan myths and legends.
(i) His first critique is that the parallels “don‘t involve a virginal conception. Rather, they involve a god who impregnates a woman by sexual intercourse.”
Hays seems to have missed my main point, which was that the culture of those times require that “[g]reat men must have their greatness injected into their DNA from the time they were conceived. Thus the idea of conception by gods, either virginally or via some form of unusual intercourse was a common element in the stories told about them.” [1]
Thus we would expect that stories about Jesus birth would incorporate some element of this cultural theme. The cultures surrounding the early Christians would not have been impressed with any lesser form of conception. Since the stories told in Matthew and Luke conforms to such cultural expectations, we have every reason to doubt their historicity.
ii) Hays second point that “Matthew and Luke are written from a Jewish perspective, not a pagan perspective” does not make his case any stronger. After all, December 25th was the date of the birthday of many Pagan gods (i.e. Dionysus, Adonis and Horus) yet early Christianity, which was certainly anti Pagan, had no problems making it the birthday of Jesus as well. [2]
iii) Then Hays points to unreferenced “other miraculous birth narratives in Scripture” as providing literary parallels to the virgin birth of Jesus. Presumably, he is referring to women like Sarah (Genesis 17:15-21; 21:1-3), Leah (Genesis 29:30-32), Rebecca (Genesis 25:21), Rachel (Genesis 30:22), Hannah (Samuel 1:10-11, 19-20) and Samson’s unnamed mother (Judges 13). But are these really closer parallels than the pagan stories specifically its major theme –conception by a god? In none of these Old Testament stories was God the direct agency of the birth. In all cases normal sexual intercourse between two humans beings were assumed, God merely “opened the womb” of these old and / or barren women to help the conception – like a heavenly fertility doctor. The virgin birth of Matthew and Luke has God as the direct agency of the conception of Jesus, something we see in the pagan stories as well. The main theme, that a god fathered a child, is one that the stories of Matthew and Luke share with the pagan myths not with the Old Testament tales.
iv) As for the “opposing literature”, again Hays cites an evangelical work (J.G. Machen) and an article by a theologian, C.E.B. Cranfield, whose understanding of the historical method is suspect. After admitting that there is “no possibility of any one’s being able to prove the historicity of the Virgin Birth,” Cranfield went on to assert that “no proof of its non-historicity has been produced”[3] forgetting that the burden of proof has to fall on the party that makes an incredible claim.
22. Next Hays tries to take me to task for stating that the massacre of the innocents by Herod (Matthew 2:16-18) is not historical. His defense? That this is an argument from silence.
Since this red herring is raised very often by evangelicals, let me state unequivocally here – when done properly, an argument from silence is a legitimate form of historical reasoning. An argument from silence can be used to argue for the occurrence of an event despite the silence of the sources [4] or it can be used to argue for the non-occurrence of a purported event.[5] In the current case, one can easily claim that it is evangelicals such as Hays who are arguing from Josephus’ silence to the historicity of the event. For Josephus’ silence is explained by the claim that the event is a “minor one” that was missed by the Jewish historian. Yet was the event “minor”? Matthew certainly did not mean for his readers to take this atrocity as a minor one, as Edwin D. Freed noted, the massacre was:
a deed so dastardly that it caused loud lamentations and weeping among the Jews (Mt. 2.18)[6]
Of course, one always prefers positive evidence, but in many cases, as Collingwood rightly noted, historians and archaeologists simply have no choice but to deduce information from silence. Howard and Pervernier noted[7] that when we face such incidence in our sources we have to ask the following questions:
a. Was the person or source in a position to have the information?When we apply this to Josephus, we find that he was in a position to have the information. He had multiple sources for Herod’s reign (Antiquities 15:6:3) and he was born in Jerusalem around 37 CE and lived in that city much of the time until the outbreak of the Jewish War in 66 CE. An event such as the massacre of the children described by Matthew is extremely unlikely to have escaped the notice of the Jewish historian.
b. Was the person or source supposedly giving a full account of the subject in which the silenced information was a part of?
c. Does the person have any reason to suppress the said information?
Josephus recounted in detail the crimes committed by Herod in his final years of Herod in “Jewish War” and, especially, in “Antiquities of the Jews.” Given below is a list of the crimes of Herod towards the end of his life as reported by the Jewish historian:
· Herod murdered Aristobolos III the high priest because the 18 year old priest was a Hasmonean(Antiquities 15:3:3);Did Josephus have any reason to suppress the information? None at all, indeed if anything, it was the opposite. As has been pointed out, Josephus was writing for Emperor Titus, whose mistress, Berenice, was herself a Hasmonean. So It was in the interest of the Jewish historian to blacken Herod’s name as much as possible. [9] We note, furthermore, that Josephus himself was a Pharisee, Herod was not too kind to them as well.
· He killed Hyrcanus II, another Hasmonean (Antiquities 15:6:2);
· He murdered his wife Mariamme, and his sister’s husband, Joseph in a jealous rage (War 1:23:5/Antiquities 15:7:4-5);
· He killed Mariamme’s mother, Alexandra (Antiquities 15:7:8);
· When he discovered that his brother-in-law, Costobarus was trying to protect the sons of Babas (reputed to be of Hasmonean blood) he had them all killed. (Antiquities 15:7:9-10);
· He had the soldier Tero and 300 of his officers stoned to death (Antiquities 16:11:7);
· He ordered the murder of his sons, Aristobolus, Alexander and Antipater (Antiquities 16:11:7, 17:7:1)
· He had some Pharisees killed because they made a prophecy about his downfall (Antiquities 17:2:4)
· He had two rabbis, Judas and Matthias, burned for daring to remove a blasphemous (to Jews) golden eagle that he placed on top of the temple (Antiquities 17:6:2-4)
· and as he was nearing death himself, he arranged for the members of every prominent family in Judaea to be locked up in the hippodrome in Jericho. All these will be killed at the moment of his death so that all of Judea will be forced to weep at the moment of his death. (Antiquities 17:6:5)[8]
Let us summarize, Josephus has every reason to report the massacre of the children had it occurred (he was a Pharisee and the mistress of his target reader was a Hasmonean –both enemies of Herod), he had the occasion to do it (his books, which provide details of the life and death and Herod) and he would very likely had had access to information on the paedo-cide had it actually happened (he had multiple sources and he lived in Jerusalem for close to three decades). Based on these considerations[10] most scholars and historians conclude that the massacre of the innocents probably never happened.[11]
23. In stating that “it wasn‘t God‘s intention to avoid the massacre in general”, Hays have completely misunderstood the issue I raised regarding theodicy (the so-called “problem of evil”). Namely, if God is all good, all knowing and all powerful, why does he allow evil to happen? Hays is simply shrugging his shoulders and saying “God is as God does”. In other words, in Hays’ own view (unexamined, from the looks of it), his God is that of a powerful being who does not really care that the children in Bethlehem will be slaughtered by Herod’s men and does what he wants.[12] To many scholars, this issue is, of course, a “problem” in the sense that it is something that needs to be explained.[13]
24. Hays objects to my pointing out that many scholars consider Matthew’s nativity to be based largely on Old Testament accounts, by merely stating: “The nature and relevance of “Midrash” is widely disputed.” Keeping in line with the fact that his “standard works” on archaeology of the Levant are all evangelical ones, his one lone citation of this “wide dispute” comes from a book edited by two evangelicals!
25. The next topic is the Lukan account of the census by Quirinius. Luke 2:1 had claimed that it was a world-wide census. Yet there was never any world-wide (or “empire-wide”) census under Caesar Augustus. Hays admits that “Luke‘s statement is imprecise” about the census being world-wide. Refusing to admit that this “imprecision” is a mistake and calling it a “hyperbole” for rhetorical effect, he then claimed that “Luke‘s original audience would appreciate that fact.” My question to him is simple – how does he know that ““Luke‘s original audience would appreciate that fact.” My question is rhetorical, of course; Hays does not, and could not know, what Luke’s original audience would have “appreciated.” He is just using this to save his beloved doctrine of biblical inerrancy – rather unconvincingly.
Hays quoted Stanley Porter’s paper in an attempt to shore up his claim that Luke’s account may be historical. Yet if one reads Porter’s conclusion, it is obvious that the best case he could made was that Luke’s detail may correspond to the Roman census in 6/7 CE - 10 years after the birth of Jesus! As for a census during the time of Herod, all Porter could say was “we simply do not know when or have any determinative papyrological evidence that he [Herod] did.”[14]
Finally despite calling my showing the problem with the Quirinius census vis-à-vis Luke’s nativity account “stock objections” – Hays completely ignored the next two pages of my chapter in which I showed in detail why the evangelical “stock reply” of an earlier census under the same Quirinius is impossible. Should I take his silence as implicit acceptance of the failure of the evangelical case here?
ON PROPHECIES
Before we proceed to the next few sections –which deal with fake and failed prophecies – it is important to take a step back and look at the issue of prophecy and the claims made of it by evangelicals. In popular books such as Josh McDowell’s “Evidence that Demands and Verdict” and Lee Strobel’s ‘The Case for Christ” much is make of prophecies –in particular the so-called messianic prophecies - as “evidence” for the truth of Christian claims. It is claimed that the prophecies about Jesus are so many and so accurate that they could only point to him as the messiah. [15] Thus here we have a claim that is supposed to convince outsiders, people such as myself. Keep this fact in mind as we go through the verbal gymnastics Hays uses to try and defend these prophecies.
26. The first messianic prophecy I noted was that of Matthew 2:14-15. Matthew treated the return of the family of Jesus as fulfillment of the prophecy in Hosea:
He [Joseph] arose and took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” [Hosea 11:1]Yet when we look at the passage from Hosea 11:1-2 we do not see a prophecy about the future at all. Hosea was speaking of the past, about the escape of the Israelites from Egypt:
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols.Furthermore note that the second verse, about the Israelites disobedience, is one of disappointment -how does that apply to Jesus? It is indeed ludricrous to see this as a prophecy of Jesus’ family’s return from Egypt.
Hay’s reply? “This is a case of typology.” And that’s it! I shake my head in wonderment when I see the evangelical mind at work. Indeed, what Hays and his evangelical sources calls this “typology”, mainstream critical scholars call “quoting out of context.” Here is what Robert Miller, a New Testament scholar and a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, wrote:
Here Matthew quotes only the second half of Hos 11:1. It’s easy to see why. Hos 11:1a makes it clear that “my son” in 11:1b is a collective reference to Israel. Quoting the full verse would wreck the correlation to Jesus. This is doubly true for the next verse (Hosea 11:2). Not only does that verse refer to the Israelites in the plural; it also speaks of their idolatry. Both features of that verse makes it impossible for Matthew to read Jesus into it...The other three prophecies[16] immediate literary contexts that make Matthew’s meaning impossible. Matthew can connect these prophecies to Jesus only by taking carefully chosen lines out of their surrounding contexts. In their own settings these prophecies wreck Matthew’s project.[17]
Let me repeat the point I made above. The claim that the details of Jesus’ life is supposed to prove to skeptics that Jesus was the messiah. How does calling an obvious non-prophecy a “typology” help this attempt along in any way?
27. Hays tried to defend the non-prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 but stating that although ”almah” does not mean virgin it could mean so. [18] Such an explanation does not hold water. There exists a perfectly good word for virgin in Hebrew –“bethulah”. Had Isaiah wanted to make clear in 7:14 that the prophecy is regarding the mode of conception, he would have used “bethulah” here. That he did not, means that the prophecy was not about the manner of conception. Indeed let as look at the whole passage in its context (Isaiah 7:10-17):
Yahweh spoke again to Ahaz, saying, “Ask a sign of Yahweh your God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, neither will I tempt Yahweh.” He said, “Listen now, house of David: Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the almah will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat butter and honey when he knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor shall be forsaken. Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.Indeed as I demonstrated in my book, [19] the prophecy told in Isaiah 7 is about the fate of King Ahaz against his enemies and the baby, from the moment of his conception onwards, is used as a chronological benchmark to track the fulfillment of this conditional[20] prophecy. James Kugel explains the passage with a nice paraphrase of Isaiah 7:14-16:
Suppose a certain young woman gets pregnant and gives birth to a son she should give him the name “God-amidst-us” [Hebrew : ‘Immanu-‘el]. For by the time he knows how to feed himself, he will be eating curds and honey, since even before the child knows how to feed himself, the land whose two kings you so dread will lie deserted. [21]The whole context does not even hint of a virgin birth.
Hays then quotes a convoluted passage from yet another evangelical apologist which boils down to the author postulating two layers to the passage: the first one which describes the times of King Ahaz and another obscure one which “seems to belong to the undated future.” Yet the presence of this “second layer” of meaning is a mere supposition made to save the prophecy.
Needless to say non-evangelical scholars do not share such an obviously apologetic view. Let us look at some comments from scholars about this issue, the first in question & answer format from renowned New Testament scholar, John Dominic Crossan:
So you are saying that the virgin birth was not a fulfillment of prophecy, but a fiction based on an ancient prophecy?Here is a comment on the use of Isaiah 7:14 by Matthew and modern evangelicals by the late New Testament scholar Raymond E. Brown:
Yes, Isaiah did not predict Jesus...[22]
A prime example of this is Isaiah 7:14 where the reading “virgin” seemed to imply that, 700 years before Jesus, the prophet had predicted a virginal conception, something unparalleled in history that would have had to involve foreknowledge of Jesus’ conception…However this conception of prophecy as a prediction for the distant future has disappeared from most serious scholarship today, and it is widely recognized that the NT “fulfillment” of the OT involve much of what the OT writers did not foresee at all. The OT prophets were primarily concerned with addressing God’s challenge to their own times. If they spoke about the future, it was about in broad terms of what would happen if the challenge was accepted or rejected…there is no evidence that they foresaw with precision even a single detail in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.[23]Thus mainstream scholarship is virtually unanimous[24] in concluding that Isaiah 7:14 does not referring to the virginal conception of Jesus and has been grossly taken out of context by Matthew.
Let me summarize the case, the passage in Isaiah 7 talks about a prophecy made for the near future (the fate of King Ahaz) it says nothing about the virgin birth. What the evangelicals such as Hays and his sources are saying is that “well, if you squint hard enough, forget the fact that ‘almah’ does not explicitly mean virgin and read ‘deeper’ (I.e. ignore its actual clear cut meaning) into the text – you can actually ‘see’ a prophecy of Jesus’ virgin birth”. Needless to say serious New Testament scholars do not share this views and thinks that Isaiah 7:14 does not refer to Jesus’ virgin birth and that the whole passage has been taken out of context by Matthew to make it ”fit” as a prophecy about Jesus.
28. Next Hays turn to my note that the prophecy in Isaiah 19:5-7 – that the river Nile will dry up – has never been fulfilled.
It is quite interesting that he attempts two mutually contradictory explanations for this. First (i) he tries to argue that these verses are not to be taken literally and that they are merely “poetic imagery”. Then, just to cover all his bases, he noted that [in (ii) & (iii)] that the passages could be referring –literally this time! –either to a “temporary national disaster” or to the drying up of the irrigation canals or distributaries in the delta rather than the Nile itself.
That he suggested (ii) & (iii) means that the “poetic imagery” is merely an ad hoc attempt to “solve” the problem of the non-fulfillment of the prophecy. Where there is poetic imagery, the context is quite obvious – like when Isaiah compares Egypt to a “drunken man staggering in his vomit.” (Isaiah 19:14) In the case of the drying up of Nile we get a literal follow up of the consequences of such a disaster in the verse following Isaiah 19:5. As a result of this drying “The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away.” (Isaiah 19:6) The sown fields will be dry (Isaiah 19:7) and “the fishermen will lament” (Isaiah 19:8) because you can’t fish in dried up rivers.
The suggestion that the drying of the Nile is a figurative description for economic decay does not hold water. Since there is a literal description of economic decay (dried fields, extinct fishing industry etc) as a direct consequence of the drying river. There is nothing in the passage to points to the idea of a drying Nile being “poetic imagery.”
His literal explanations fails as well. The passage was clearly referring to the disastrous effects of the drying of the river. A drying up of tributaries or irrigation canals would not have dried up all the streams and sown fields and caused fisherman to lament! As for a “temporary national disaster” I think Hays knows by now that non-evangelicals demand evidence before accepting any assertions or suggestions. Since Hays offer no historical evidence, we can safely reject his suggestion.
29. As for Isaiah’s failed prediction of the Damascus ceasing to be a city forever (17:1-2) Hays invokes poetry once again (“homonymic trope”). He quotes yet another evangelical apologist who speculated that due to the use of some word play between “from being a city” (moir) and “a heap” (moa), the “message” Isaiah presents should not be taken literally. Instead of complete destruction, we are told that all the prophecy meant was that the city will be left without power and influence.
However, just because some poetic device is being used does not automatically mean that the literal meaning is to be abandoned. For instance, we are told in Genesis 17:19 that God named Abraham’s and Sara’s son Isaac (Hebrew - Yitzchaq) because Abraham had earlier laughed (Hebrew - tzachaq) at the suggestion that his aged wife could become pregnant. Are we to conclude that the story is not to be taken literally because of the presence of this wordplay between Yitzchak and tzachak?
Indeed, regardless of the play with words, mainstream scholars understand this prediction literally. Commenting on verse 17:1-3, this is what Brevard Childs, Professor of Divinity at Yale University wrote:
The first three verses [Isaiah17:1-3] concern Damascus…The oracle pronounces judgment above all on Damascus. The city will cease to be.[emphasis added][25]30. Next Hays turns to my pointing out that the prophecy of the fall of Tyre by Ezekiel (26:7-14) failed to materialized even by Ezekiel’s own admission (29:17-20). His answer is confused. On the one hand he claims that the prophecy was a conditional one and thus the fall could be averted if the prophet’s call was heeded. On the other hand, he seems to be claiming that Nebuchadnezzar’s[26] siege “appears to have been a success, as Ezekiel had prophesied.” Somewhere in the middle between these two hands, Hays accuses me of “arguing from silence.” I am not sure what to make of this middle argument, since he does not elaborate what he means.
Let us look at his first defense, that the prophecy is a “conditional one.” of course, there are conditional prophecies – prophetic warnings as it were – in the Old Testament. [27] Is this particular prophecy in Ezekiel an example of this? The answer is clearly “no.” In Ezekiel 26, the tone is one of judgment and condemnation – there is no talk to conditions here.
Ezekiel 26:1-4
It happened in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken: the gate of the peoples; she is turned to me; I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste: therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold, I am against you, Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to come up. They shall destroy the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her a bare rock.For his second defense, Hays quotes another evangelical apologist who asserted that because Tyre eventually became a vassal of Nebuchadnezzar, the siege may be considered successful. Yet this misses my point. The prophecy in Ezekiel says that God will turn Tyre into a “bare rock” and ensuring that it will “never be rebuilt” (Ezekiel 27:14), not about a “successful siege.” In other words, the prophecy was that Tyre will be completely destroyed – this is not the equivalent of being a vassal state!
31. Next Hays tackles the failed prophecy of Ezekiel 29:8-12 where the prophet predicted that Egypt will be a place of desolation and waste, that it won’t be inhabited for forty years and that Egyptians will be scattered through various nations in a Diaspora.
Hays reply? Oh, it’s the prophet taking “poetic license” which involves “an element rhetorical exuberance”. In other words, one shouldn’t take this too literally.
This is, of course, standard modus operandi of evangelicals, when the clear sense of a passage reveals the Bible is wrong, mistaken or inaccurate - invoke poetry! He has done this earlier of course, when Luke’s claim that the census was “worldwide” is pointed out to be mistaken, Hays says it’s “hyperbole!” (25); when it is pointed out that Isaiah’s prophecy of the Nile drying up has never been fulfilled, Hays cries “poetic imagery!”(28); when it is pointed out that Isaiah made yet another failed prediction, this time regarding Damascus, Hays exclaims “homonymic trope!” (29); and now its “rhetorical exuberance!.”
To show the baseless, ad hoc, nature of Hays’ apologetics, consider this passage from Deuteronomy 28:63b-68:
Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and you shall be plucked from off the land where you go in to possess it. Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. Among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot: but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul; and your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you shall say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you shall fear, and for the sight of your eyes which you shall see. Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again…In the passage of Deuteronomy, most evangelicals would have no problems seeing it as a direct literal prediction – and a successful one at that. It shows Moses[28] prophesying that the Israelites will be scattered (as happened after the fall of Israel to the Assyrians in 722 BCE [2 Kings 17] and Judah to the Babylonians in 586 BCE [2 Kings 25]) and that some Israelites will flee to Egypt (2 Kings 25:26). No evangelical has asked that we consider this particular prophecy to be taking some “poetic license.”
Now, let us look at the passage in question in Ezekiel 29:8-12:
Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Behold, I will bring a sword on you, and will cut off man and animal from you. The land of Egypt shall be desolation and a waste; and they shall know that I am Yahweh. Because he has said, ‘The river is mine, and I have made it;’ therefore, behold, I am against you, and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from the tower of Seveneh even to the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of animal shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be a desolation forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.”This passage is similar in form to that of Deuteronomy 28:64-68 we see above. So why is this passage in Ezekiel not taken as a literal prophecy like the one in Deuteronomy? Why is it Ezekiel and not Moses is the one who is taking “poetic license” which involves “an element rhetorical exuberance”? The answer is simple, Hays and his evangelical apologists have no choice but to assert without evidence that Ezekiel 29 is “rhetorically exuberant” because the prophecy failed.
32. Another failed prediction of Ezekiel is that Nebuchadnezzar with conquer Egypt (29:19-20). Hays accused me of utilizing “an argument from silence” and of “selective skepticism” – in what context, I am not clear. Then he cites some sources showing that Nebuchadnezzar “marched against Egypt” or “attacked the Egypt of Pharaoh Amasis in 568 BC.”
This apologetic attempts amounts to shifting Ezekiel’s prophecy into poetic “soft focus” again. For Ezekiel 29:19-20 did not merely predict that Nebuchadnezzar will merely “march against” or “attack” Egypt, he predicted that the Babylonian king will conquer it.
Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and he shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he served, because they worked for me, says the Lord Yahweh.I do not think any measure of “poetic license” can interpret being given the land of Egypt and to carry off her multitude into exile to merely attacking it.
That Nebuchadnezzar launched an attack against the outskirts of Egypt is historically probable but there is certainly no evidence that he conquered it. This is what Georges Roux, an archaeologist, says about the evidence:
A fragmentary tablet in the British Museum alludes to a campaign against pharaoh Amasis in 568 B.C. and mentions an Egyptian town, but this cannot be regarded as sufficient proof that the Babylonians ever set foot in the Nile valley.[29]The positive evidence we have that Nebuchadnezzar never conquered Egypt comes from the fact that Pharaoh Amasis remained in power from 568-525 BCE ruling over a prosperous kingdom. [30]
33. Hays then moves on to the failed prophesy of Jeremiah. I had noted that Jeremiah 36:30 prophesied that Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, shall have no successor. Yet 2 Kings 24:6 says he was succeeded by his son, Jehoiachin.
Calling my statement “deceptive”, Hays then quotes an evangelical apologist[31] which states that “Jehoiachin’s succession was not a valid one but only a token one”! Why was it not valid? “[B]ecause he was immediately besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, surrendered in three months, and then went into exile.”
The only sense I can make of this apologetic is that Hays is claiming that the reign of Jehoiachin was too short (3 months) to be valid. Since when did length of reign become a retroactive judgment on whether the investiture of the monarch is valid? It doesn’t. There were plenty of Judean and Israelite kings who had short reigns. The Israelite kings Zimri, Zechariah and Shallum reigned for 7 days, 6 months and 1 month respectively (I Kings 16:20; 2 Kings 15:8; 15:13). The Judean king Jehoahaz reigned for 3 months (2 Kings 23:31). Is Hays saying that the investiture of these kings were “invalid” as well?
If we look at 2 Kings 24:6, it does not make any mention about the appointment of Jehoiachin being “invalid” or a mere “token”:
So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers; and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.Hays defense does not make any sense here. The contradiction exists between Jeremiah 36:30 and 2 Kings 24:6.
To be continued…
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[1] The Christian Delusion: p. 158
[2] Robert M. Price, “The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man”, Prometheus Books 2003 pp.44-45
[3] C.E.B. Cranfield, “On Romans” T&T Clark 1998 p. 151
[4] Martha Howell & Walter Pervenier, “From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods” Cornell University Press 2001 p. 74
[5] R.G. Collingwood, “The Idea of History” Oxford University Press 2000 p. 388-390
see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_silence
[6] Edwin R. Freed, “The Stories of Jesus’ Birth:A Critical Introduction” Sheffield Academic Press 2001 p.102
[7] Howell and Pervenier “From Reliable Sources” p.74 – the example given here (Yitzak Shamir’s interview on Belgian TV and the slaughter of Palestinians in Beirut in 1982) is that of an information that was purposely suppressed. There line of questioning works the other way as well, that of the actual non-occurrence of the event.
[8] Luckily for the people, his order was not followed through after he died. (Antiquities 17:8:2)
[9] Raymond E. Brown “The Birth of the Messiah” Doubleday 1993 p. 226 n34
[10] And the fact that it has uncanny similarities to the story of the Pharaoh ordering the death of all Jewish male babies in Exodus 1:15-16.
[11] Brown, “The Birth of the Messiah” p.613
Don Cuppitt & Peter Armstrong, “Who Was Jesus?” BBC Books 1977 p.46
Bart Ehrman, “God’s Problem: How The Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer” HarperOne 2008 p.103
Freed, “The Stories of Jesus’ Birth” p.102
Robert Funk & The Jesus Seminar, “The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do” HarperSanFrancisco 1998 p.509
Gerd Lüdemann, “Virgin Birth? The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus” Trinity Press 1998 p.86
Steve Mason, “Josephus and the New Testament” Hendrickson 1992, p.97
Price, “The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man”, pp.65-66
Uta Ranke-Heinemann, “Putting Away Childish Things” HarperSanFrancisco 1995 pp.28-30
E.P. Sanders, “The Historical Figure of Jesus” Penguin 1993 p.87
[12] In this sense Hays’ God is actually more like the God of the Muslims where morality is simply defined as what God wills. (Robert R. Reilly, “The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis” ISI Books 2010)
[13] Ehrman, “God’s Problem” pp.103-104
Lüdemann, “Virgin Birth?” p.81
Ranke-Heinemann, “Putting Away Childish Things” p.30
[14] Stanley Porter, “The Reasons for the Lukan Census” A. Christophersen et al. eds. Paul, Luke and the Graeco Roman World (Sheffield 2002) p. 188
[15] Josh McDowell, “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” Here’s Life Publishers 1979 p.141-178
Lee Strobel, “The Case for Christ” Zondervan 1998 pp. 230-252
[16] Hays was discussing four prophecies in this section of his book. The Hosea 11:1 is one of the “three other prophecies”.
[17] Robert J. Miller “Born Divine: The Birth of Jesus & Other Sons of God” Polebridge Books 2003 pp.169-170
[18] “Almah”simply means a young woman who may or may not be a virgin.
[19] Tobin, “The Rejection of Pascal’s Wager” pp.320-325
[20] Conditional on Ahaz heeding the word of God. In the actual event he did not and paid a heavy price for it (2 Kings 16:5-9).
[21] James L. Kugel “How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now” Free Press 2007 pp.549
see also Brown “The Birth of the Messiah” p. 146-148
[22] John Dominic Crossan, “Who Is Jesus?” HarperPaperbacks 1996 p.21
[23] Brown “The Birth of the Messiah” p.146
[24] Apart from Kugel, Crossan and Brown referenced in the text, here are other references by scholars who share this position:
Freed, “The Stories of Jesus’ Birth” p.72-73
Charles W. Hedrick, “When History and Faith Collide: Studying Jesus” Hendrickson 1999 p.9
Miller “Born Divine” pp.169-170
Price, “The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man” p.31
Ranke-Heinemann, “Putting Away Childish Things” p.45
John S. Spong, “Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Virgin Birth…”HarperSanFrancisco 1992 pp. 74-79
Clayton Sullivan, “Rescuing Jesus from the Christians” Trinity Press International 2002 pp.38-39
[25] Brevard S. Childs, “Isaiah: A Commentary” Westminster John Knox 2000 p.136
[26] Most historians and archaeologists refer to this Babylonian king more accurately as “Nebuchadrezzar II”
[27] The case of Isaiah 7 is actually one such example. If King Ahaz had trusted in his God, the prophecy of “milk and honey” would have been fulfilled.
[28] Of course, scholars nowadays know this is not really a prediction at all. That section of the Bible is normally attributed to a post exilic editor known as Dtr2. (see Richard Elliot Friedman, “The Bible with Sources Revealed” HarperSanFrancisco 2003, pp. 5 & 354) In other words, the passage in Deuteronomy is a prediction after the fact.
[29] Georges Roux, “Ancient Iraq” Penguin Books 1980 p.350
[30] J.E. Manchip White “Ancient Egypt: Its Culture and History” Dover Publications, 1970 p.200
Donald B. Redford (ed) “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt: Volume I (A-F)” Oxford University Press 2000, pp.66-67
[31] His other quote from Feinberg’s “Jeremiah” makes even less sense in the context of his criticism since Feinberg is merely describing the turn of events.
7 comments:
On the virgin birth, there's the great quote given by Harry McCall on this very blog:
As to the Virgin Birth for a commoner like Mary, I would cite the very ancient, but astute Akkadain proverb: ina la na-kimi-i e-rat-me in la a-ka-li-me ka-ab-rat (They say: ‘Could she be pregnant without sexual intercourse; could she be fat without eating?’) G.W. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, Oxford University Press, 1960; p. 241 ii 40-42.
I spent some time talking with Steve Hays at Triablogue over the past few days. The problem is that he thinks the only proper way to interpret the Bible is to assume that it is true. He calls this "divine revelation". He says this:
"At the level of basic epistemology, science can never disprove the Bible because divine revelation is our only clear window onto the world. Otherwise, we perceive the world through the stained-glass solipsism of our inescapable subjectivity."
...Therefore every argument you or anyone else presents against the Bible is, by definition, untrue.
Another interesting point while I'm here. Hays quotes John Currid a lot. Currid has spent the past 15 years at the Reformed Theological Seminary, home of this "Statement of Belief":
"Since the Bible is absolutely and finally authoritative as the inerrant Word of God, it is the basis for the total curriculum."
What I hadn't realized is that this is the very same seminary which Bruce K. Waltke recently resigned from after suggesting the evidence for evolution was "overwhelming".
Consider this. If John Currid even suggested that the Bible might not be accurate in every respect, he'd likely have to resign his position and leave the Seminary in a scandal...
The big question for me is this: How does one argue with Steve Hays, when he is convinced "divine revelation" is real and cannot be contradicted? It's the same with William Lane Craig and his "witness to the Holy Spirit".
How do Hays & Craig know that these invisible witnesses are true, and not delusional or even the work of satan? I guess we just have to take their words for it...
P
PTET, consider the statement that "christianity is true" in the context of catholic canon law.
A priest cannot report a criminal who has confessed his sins or he will be severely punished. I am not sure what that would be, except exommunication.
A serial killer feels no remorse for his victims. But using the principal of not questioning the authority of the church leadership, one must allow a serial killer to go free, even with the knowledge that more people will die. And so this is why the catholic church should not be seen as a moral authority.
I turned on the TV today and I saw a preacher on TBN talking about how the prophets were plain spoken straight shooters who spoke a clear message that was impossible to miss. I just about broke down laughing after reading this post and seeing what sort of gymnastics must be done to salvage the old prophecies.
It's interesting how Biblical inerrancy makes conservative Christians sound like liberals when they are forced to start talking about how the writer didn't mean the clear meaning, but a secret deeper meaning.
Thanks for this Paul and I look forward to future installments.
Are you aware of a theory, put forward by Jane Schaberg, regarding Is 7:14? It goes like this.
The Septuagint translators were quite competent translators and would know the difference between young maiden and virgin. What if the Greek word "parthenos" in fact was ambiguous as to whether or not it meant strictly "virgin" when translated and similarly what if Matthew understood that. In other words what if Matthew didn't really mean that Mary was a virgin.
Impossible you say, but notice the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew. Matthew goes out of his way to list only 4 women of the past. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. What do these women have in common? Dubious sexual history. Tamar acted as a prostitute and slept with Judah, Rahab was a prostitute, Ruth though not married to Boaz "uncovers his feet" (translate as genitalia), and of course Bathsheba was an adulterous. Isn't it strange that he would list them? Could the point be that God has brought good from sinful behavior and so likewise the conception of Jesus by the unmarried Mary may have been wrong but this doesn't mean God can't redeem it?
Jon, that is an interesting suggestion. Indeed Robert Miller in his book "Born Divine:The Birth of Jesus and Other Sons of God" brought up this very same point about the four names. He suggests that Matthew's gospel, if read without the preconceived idea that he was describing a virgin birth, could be taken to mean that he believed Jesus had an illegitimate birth.
Gerd Ludemann, in his book "Virgin Birth: The Real Story of Mary and her son Jesus" more or less comes to the same conclusion that the four names in Jesus' genealogy given in first gospel hints that Matthew knew Jesus' birth was illegitimate - in other words he was fathered by some other man rather than Joseph.
Both Miller and Ludemann suggested that Mary may have been raped. Miller's scenario for the occasion for this rape (Miller: p.220 - that Mary may have been raped by Roman soldiers who were quelling the rebellion in Sephoris after the death of Herod) seems plausible although speculative. Again Ludemann came to almost the same conclusion when he showed that the old accusation to Jesus was fathered by a Roman soldier named Pandera (Ludemann: p. 59) may have more legs than given it by most scholars.
'Next Hays tries to take me to task for stating that the massacre of the innocents by Herod (Matthew 2:16-18) is not historical. His defense? That this is an argument from silence.'
So there is no evidence for Christian claims?
Gosh, even Mormons know enough to start shouting 'Argument from silence' when Christians point out there is no evidence for Mormon claims.
These tricks are well known. If there is no evidence for what you say , then claim 'Argument from silence', and you can keep on believing things for which there is no evidence.
The only downside is that Dawkins will then write books pointing out that Christians believe things for which there is no evidence.
Paul, have you noticed Jason Engwer's response to this over at Triablogue?
Personally I think he's missing the point. There's nothing wrong with holding minority positions. But when you do you have to concede that you have a burden of proof. Price and Carrier both hold minority views on historicity. And they both concede that this means their view starts with a presumption against it, so they have some heavy lifting required.
Hays is like the mythicist that says "Well Price and Carrier agree with me." Well yeah, I guess they do. And sure, they're smart people. But they are out of the mainstream. Doesn't mean they are wrong, but don't substitute an appeal to scholarship in place of an argument because that's not your strong suit, and it's not persuasive because we know what the majority of scholarship thinks.
Imagine a historicist points to "James, the brother of the Lord" and argues that it implies that Jesus was a historical figure. In response someone says "Well it COULD BE that it means something else and oh, by the way, you didn't deal with Robert Price and Richard Carrier." Would Steve find that persuasive? If not why does he think his reasoning is persuasive?
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