In
May of 2013, I presented a scholarly paper at Ghent University, Belgium,
in
which I discussed the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke and the nature of the Gospel
genre. The title of my presentation was "
Burke's Entelechy, Perelman's
Epideictic, and the Transmission of Values.” The conference was the Rhetoric as Equipment for Living (Kenneth Burke, Culture, and
Education) Conference. It was the first European conference devoted
to the study of the concepts of Kenneth Burke.
While I consider Kenneth Burke to be the premier rhetorical theorist of
the 20th Century, another close contender for that honor is Chaïm
Perelman, who, during his lifetime, taught at the Free University of Brussels.
I was honored to have in the audience at my
presentation not only elite Burkean scholars from across the globe, but also the
Belgian scholar who had succeeded Perelman as Professor of Rhetoric and
Philosophy at the Free University of Brussels, Michel
Meyer, a former student of Chaïm Perelman. During the Question-and-Answer period
following my presentation, Professor Meyer took it upon himself to question the
historicity of all of the Gospels. He
asserted that there was no difference between the Gospels and the story of
Pinocchio. He asserted that anything
that was written sixty years after the supposed historical event (which he
asserted that the Gospels were) is nothing but fable. I continued the conversation with Professor
Meyer, following the session at which I spoke, and subsequently published a
journal article on the topic—at the urging of other Belgian scholars—in the KB Journal.
Volume 11, Issue 1 Summer 2015
Contents of Issue 11.1 (Summer 2015)
Professor Meyer’s objection to the historicity of the Gospels
is typical of many biblical scholars who, since the last third of the
nineteenth century, have exchanged the previously overwhelming consensus that
the Bible is the infallible Word of God for a new presumption—that the
Scriptures are “a singular human book rather than a divine revelation” (Mark A.
Noll, Between Faith and Criticism,
13). The Society of Biblical Literature
(of which, incidentally, I am a member) was founded in 1880, and generally accepted
assumptions, such as “that all religion reflects an evolutionary development
from the primitive to the complex . . . and that supernatural events are not
possible” (Noll, 20). Hence, a paradigm
shift developed, between 1880 and 1900, for studying the Bible. The new paradigm dictated: “[T]he Bible . . .
is a human book to be investigated with the standard assumptions that one
brings to the discussion of all products of human culture” (Noll, 45).
Of course, that new liberal paradigm was a product of
Modernism, which itself is now considered a failed philosophy. However, as it turns out, even according to
that Modernist paradigm of studying the Bible as a “human book,” the Gospels still
shine as being historically reliable. Most
liberal scholars now place the writing of the gospels within 40 to 60 years
after Jesus’ earthly life. These
critical scholars typically place the writing of Mark in the 70s, Matthew and
Luke in the 80s, and John in the 90s. If
Jesus died in 33 AD, and the earliest gospel was written in the 70s, the gospel
accounts began to be written down around 40 years after Jesus’ earthly
life. However, it is by no means certain
that the liberal scholarly dating of the gospels is correct. Dr. Craig Blomberg
argues that the Book of
Acts could not have been written later than 62 AD, because it concludes with
the Apostle Paul still living under house arrest in Rome, yet Paul was put to
death sometime between 62 and 67. Since
Acts was written by Luke AFTER Luke wrote his gospel, the Gospel According to
Luke was probably written no later than 61. Since Luke appears to rely somewhat
on Mark, Mark would apparently have been written no later than 60. If Jesus died in 33 AD and Mark was written
as late as 60, the first gospel was written only 27 years after the events it
describes. Is it possible for eyewitnesses
to reconstruct historical events in detail correctly 30 or 40 or even 60 years
after the fact? Absolutely!
I offer a personal
example.
My brother Rod emailed a
sister, another brother, and me, recently, recalling a car trip our family took
60 years ago. Rod wrote: “Barb your trip
reminds me of the 1957 trip to Pikes Peak. Dad picked up the new ‘57 pea green
Ford in Mason City. We stopped overnight at Uncle Ted's and they took us by
Harry Truman's house. Then on to the Kansas sod house with Dennis in the cowboy
outfit. Then it was the disappointment of the real Dodge City and Boot Hill. On
toward Colorado with Marilyn saying, ‘Mom make the boys sit still.’ Stan saying,
‘Are we there yet?’ Tim saying, ‘Dad make Barb drive faster!’ With Stan joining him in saying ‘Yeah, let's
go 80.’” In the spirit of eyewitness confirmation,
Barb wrote back: “
Wow
Rod what a memory! . . . It seemed like many times dad packed us all into
the car in the early morning to make a trip --always so pleasant to be riding
as the sun came up.” To illustrate the
corrective nature of eyewitnesses, I then responded: “Rod is mistaken about me saying, ‘Let's go
80.’ I recall that the line came from one of the children Uncle Emery
used to take to church. The child told him, ‘Let's go faster, Henry!
Let's go 50.’ The story was related to me by Sam. I
do remember how exciting it was to be surprised at school by having Dad pick us
up in a new car and take off on vacation.” Rod, then, corroborated my account of the
“let’s go faster” line: “Cindy Hartey implored ‘Henry’ to go faster, and
her brother said, ‘Yeah, Henry, let's go 50,’ when
our super uncle was already going 60. Taking that lead, Barb's brothers
implored her to drive faster and upped the ante to ‘Let's go 80.’ I was with Dad when he picked up that 57
Ford. He loved the collar [Dad’s pronunciation of the word: color] he
chose and ordered. He was so disappointed when it over-heated so we
didn't reach the top of the mountain. But it was only a six cylinder and
was loaded to the hilt with him, Mom, six kids and a trunk crammed with
luggage. I loved his driving on those terribly narrow mountain roads. His
wheels were often too close to the edge for Mom's sanity. And he had to back up
to a wider place in the road several times upon meeting other cars. On the way
to CO it was really good of him to give our 17-year-old sister a chance to
drive. On the way home, I think he must have been pretty tired of driving
and, if Barb would drive, he would not back-seat-drive and have her go 80 NO
MATTER HOW MUCH YOU AND TIM YELLED AT HER!!!!!
But, Stan, you will be most pleased to learn that for the first time in
family history Mom, Barb, and Marilyn ordered this new food called pizza in
Colorado Springs, the night before we attempted the trip up the mountain. Of
course, we boys didn't even try it because we thought it had to be yuk.” I deferred to my older brother’s recollection,
but added a caveat: “You are correct. It
was Cindy (although, for some reason, I had envisioned her last name as being
spelled ‘Hardy’) and the joke was that Uncle Emery had already been going 60,
at the time. I suppose that it is possible that I upped the ante to 80 on
that trip--I would have only been 7 years old at the time. What I find
fascinating about these interactions regarding our past shared history is the
way they corroborate the ‘historical’ facticity of the Gospel accounts. . . . It emphasizes to me that these
events happened 60 years ago, yet we eyewitnesses are able to supply
recalcitrance (both corrective and corroborative) to reconstruct even the
minute details of conversations and events that occurred so long ago. If
we ‘kids’ can do this sort of thing sixty years after the events, it would be a
piece of cake for Jesus' hundreds and thousands of eyewitness disciples to
supply this kind of recalcitrance regarding the sermons, teachings,
conversations, and events of Jesus' life that were recorded by Paul (just a few
years after Jesus' death and resurrection in I Corinthians 15:1-9, where he
mentions hundreds of eyewitnesses) or his student and assistant Dr. Luke or
Peter's student Mark or the actual eyewitnesses Matthew and John, within only
40 years after the events. And our reconstructions are accomplished even
without the considerable benefit of the spiritual gifts of Apostles and
Evangelists! . . . Dennis--being a later arrival, like the Apostle
Paul--gets to confer with us original experiencers to discover the details he
was not around to experience. However, when Barb shoots us those pictures
of her and Marilyn and the Flood, I find myself in Dennis and Paul's situation,
as well!” Rod, then modified his account
of me saying ‘Let’s go eighty’: “I confess, you may not have egged Barb to drive faster. It
was Tim and I who coined the word squeighty on that trip. I cannot
imagine why a 17-year-old girl wouldn't feel safe driving 80 on a two lane road
with her family of [eight] shoehorned into a little 57 Ford. My memory and
faith (even in Barb's driving) fail miserably when compared to Matthew's and
John's ability to recount events and statements. Methinks, it is the
difference between blowing smoke and the Holy Spirit giving utterance. I debated Hardy and Hartey and thought it was
the latter.” Finally, Dennis, who was
just a baby at the time of the trip we discussed, joined in to confirm the
Cindy Hardy story, but in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner, threw in the
concept of textual variants: “I also remember the Cyndi Hardee story (note the
textual variant!), though, obviously not from personal eyewitness
experience. Stan, your implied designation of me as ‘one untimely born’
makes a lot of sense and helps me with my own self-understanding a bit.
Being untimely born has its pros and cons. On the one hand, . . . I have
little to no personal connection with our Lindsay cousins – certainly not the
way you elderly siblings have. On the other hand it affords me a
unique perspective/voice in the family, not necessarily anchored to some of the
earlier family experiences and experiments.”
Having some fun with Dennis’s allusion to the similarities between the
Apostle Paul and himself, I replied: “Right,
Dennis! Don't push the metaphor too far! :) Were you thinking
of making Rod into Cephas and Barb into the Magdalene? I, being somewhat
younger than Rod, am content with being the disciple whom Jesus loved.”
If this exchange among my family members seems excessively
conscious of critical Biblical issues, it is because my brother Dennis holds a
Doctor of Theology degree from the University of Tübingen and both my brother
Rod and Barb’s husband Dean are Christian ministers, both holding the M.Div.
degree from Lincoln Christian University.
Yet, I repeat my observation: “What I find
fascinating about these interactions regarding our past shared history is the
way they corroborate the ‘historical’ facticity of the Gospel accounts. . . . It emphasizes to me that these
events happened 60 years ago, yet we eyewitnesses are able to . . . reconstruct
even the minute details of conversations and events that occurred so long ago.
If we [OLD] ‘kids’ can do this sort of thing sixty years after the
events, it would be a piece of cake for Jesus' hundreds and thousands of
eyewitness disciples to supply this kind of recalcitrance regarding the
sermons, teachings, conversations, and events of Jesus' life . . . within only
40 years after the events.” And, this
example of our reconstruction of events in our childhood is typical. We have done this type of reconstruction
countless times, regarding countless shared events in our lives. I’m sure that we are not alone. Virtually everyone could verify this type of
phenomenon occurring in their lives.
Crowdsourcing,
a term coined in 2005, conceptualizes some of the very phenomena that I have
just described from familial and Gospel contexts. The primary difference is that the internet
is now used to cross-check and verify information, whether used for ideas,
services, marketing, or even Wikipedia, which offers the following definition:
“Crowdsourcing is distinguished from outsourcing in that the work can come from
an undefined public (instead of being commissioned from a specific, named
group) and in that crowdsourcing includes a mix of bottom-up and top-down
processes.” On October 2, 2017, I
watched the premier episode of a television show, “Wisdom of the Crowd,” which
shows the crowdsourcing methodology being used to solve crimes. This is not dissimilar to what occurred as
the Gospels were being formulated.
The Gospels, however, were not the first written accounts of
events in the life of Jesus. The earliest written record of events in the life
of Jesus occurs, not in the Gospels, but in the epistles of Paul, written in
the 40s and 50s. Professor Meyer’s
assertion that anything that was written sixty years after the supposed
historical event (which he asserted that the Gospels were) is nothing but fable
begins to unravel with the fact that Paul, in I Corinthians 15:3-8, gives an
outline of the most important section of the Gospels (occurring in all 4
gospels and Acts): “3 For what
I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was
buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures, 5 and that he
appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After
that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the
same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then
he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and
last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.”
WHEN did Paul receive this account of Jesus’ death, burial,
and resurrection on the third day, plus his appearances to his disciples (the
related events of which take up one-half of the Gospel according to Mark)? He certainly received it BEFORE he wrote the
book of I Corinthians. The most logical
suggestion is that he received the account sometime in the three years
following his conversion on the Road to Damascus, at which time Paul himself became
an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus.
That event occurred approximately two years after Jesus’ death, and Paul
(previously called Saul of Tarsus) had surely heard some of the gospel message,
beforehand, because he had been actively persecuting the Christian sect for
their message. He would have known some
of the claims of the sect he was persecuting.
Within three years of his conversion, he learned the gospel more fully
from Ananias in Damascus and, eventually, three years later, from Peter and
James (Jesus’ brother) in Jerusalem: “After three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained
with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the
Lord’s brother” (Galatians 1:18-19). If
Paul is passing along information that he received within the first five years
after Jesus’ earthly life, Professor Meyer’s assertion that these biblical
accounts are non-historical because they are all written too many years after
the fact is unraveling even more. Paul’s
writings confirm the Gospel accounts that:
1.
Jesus was a direct descendent of King David (Romans 1:3, II Timothy
2:8)
2.
Jesus’ brother was James--the son of Joseph and Mary (I Corinthians 15:3-8, Galatians 1:19, 2:9, 12)
3. Jesus had twelve disciples (I Corinthians 15:3-8)
4. Jesus is the Christ, the Jewish Messiah, the Son of
God (throughout Paul’s writings)
5. Miracles actually do occur (I Corinthians 12:10,
28-29)
6.
Healings
actually do occur (I Corinthians 12:9, 28, 30)
7.
Jesus was transfigured (Philippians 2:5-11)
8.
Jesus introduced the Lord’s Supper (I Corinthians 11:23-26)
9.
Jesus was betrayed (I Corinthians 11:23)
10. Jesus was killed by
the method of crucifixion (Philippians 2:5-11)
11. Jesus actually died (I Corinthians 15:3-8, Philippians 2:5-11)
12. Jesus was buried (I
Corinthians 15:4, Romans 6:4, Colossians 2:12)
13. Jesus was resurrected
in three days (I Corinthians 15:4, II Timothy 2:8)
14. Jesus appeared in
resurrected form to Peter and the twelve (I Corinthians 15:3-8)
15. Jesus appeared in
resurrected form to many others (I
Corinthians 15:3-8)
16. Jesus was exalted in
heaven (Philippians 2:5-11)
If liberal scholars generally accept assumptions such as
“that supernatural events are not possible” (Noll, 20), they would tend to
write off all miracles and healings in the Gospel accounts. I wrote, in The Logic of Christianity 15: Revelation is True until Proven False: “As
I point out in my book ArguMentor, ‘Miracles and fulfilled prophecies are
proofs that do not necessarily rely on ethos
[and, hence, are logical, relying on logos]. However, ACCOUNTS of miracles, absent
substantiating evidence, do again rely on ethos. It is generally advisable in argumentation
not to rely excessively on ethos,
unless both parties in the dispute are willing to stipulate that the individual
(or individuals) being relied on for ethos
is in a position to know the truth of a matter.’ . . . How would one ever prove
that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that he walked on water, changed water into
wine, fed 5000 with two fish and five loaves of bread, raised Lazarus from the
dead, and performed numerous healings?
Conversely, how would one ever disprove those things? One just has to TRUST the person/s relating
the account. Of course, in the case of
the gospel accounts of miracles, apostles and eyewitnesses were willing to die
instead of recanting their testimonies.”
The writings of Josephus and other Jewish writers from the period do
nothing to disclaim accounts of Jesus’ miraculous works, although the Talmud
credits “sorcery” as the basis upon which he accomplished the works.
Logically,
it seems to me the height of arrogance to suggest that feats that defy nature
that have been accomplished by other human beings would be IMPOSSIBLE to accomplish
by someone who received power from God. Except, possibly, for “raising the dead,” virtually
every type of healing the Gospels attribute to Jesus has been accomplished,
over the years, by medical science. Chapter 3 of my
book Implicit Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke’s Extension of Aristotle’s
Concept of Entelechy is entitled “The Human as Super-Natural: Aristotelian Types
of Entelechy.” The premise of the
chapter is a clause from Kenneth Burke’s Definition of Human. The clause is that the human is “separated
from his[/her] natural condition by
instruments of his[/her] own making” (LSA 16, bold mine). If even we humble mortals are capable of
overcoming natural laws and conditions, how arrogant must we be to insist that
God’s Son would never be able to defy natural laws?
The following list of illnesses and
bodily malfunctions cured by Jesus is fairly complete:
·
bent
spine Lk. 13:10-21 (crippled woman)
·
blind
Jn. 9:1-41 (man born that way); Mk. 10:46-52; Mt. 20:29-34; Lk. 18:35-43; Mt.
11:2-19; Lk. 7:18-35
·
deaf
Mt. 11:2-19; Lk. 7:18-35
·
diseases
Mt. 11:2-19; Lk. 7:18-35
·
epileptic
Mt. 4:23-25
·
fever
Jn. 4:46-54; Mk. 1:29-34; Mt. 8:14-17; Luke 4:38-41
·
lame
Jn. 1:5-47; Mt. 11:2-19; Lk. 7:18-35
·
leprosy
Lk. 17:11-37; Mk. 1:40-45; Mt. 8:2-4; Lk. 5:12-16; Mt. 11:2-19; Lk. 7:18-35
·
palsy
Mk. 2:1-12; Mt. 9:1-8; Lk. 5:17-26 (paralytic?); Mt. 4:23-25; Mt. 8:5-13;
Lk.7:1-10 (near death)
·
plagues
Mt. 11:2-19; Lk. 7:18-35
·
raise
dead Mt. 11:2-19; Lk. 7:18-35; Jn. 11:1-44 (Lazarus); Lk. 7:11-17
·
sick
on their beds Mk. 6:53-56; Mt. 14:34-36
·
various
illnesses Mk. 1:29-34; Mt. 8:14-17; Luke 4:38-41
·
withered
hand Mk. 3:1-6; Mt. 12:9-14; Lk. 6:6-11
Of course, being born of a virgin, walking on
water, changing water into wine, feeding 5000 with two fish and five loaves of
bread, and raising Lazarus from the dead are qualitatively much more
substantial miracles than most of the healings Jesus effected. But what greater miracle was there in all of
history than Jesus’ resurrection from death by crucifixion? And, Paul’s early testimony of more than 500
eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection argues strongly that the Gospel accounts
were confirmed by the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses.
In Lee Strobel’s powerful book, The Case for Christ, he interviews 13
scholars with excellent credentials for attesting to the historical reliability
of the Gospels. I recommend that readers
purchase the audiobook version of this text and listen to it over and over
again. Strobel is a former legal editor of
the Chicago Tribune, and approaches
the issue of whether Christianity is reliable from a legal/forensic
perspective, as he calls scholarly witnesses.
His chapters focus on issues such as whether the eyewitness testimony in
the Gospels is credible, whether the text of the Gospels have been reliably
transmitted through the years, whether there is corroborating testimony
concerning the historical reliability of the Gospels from other historical
sources, whether archaeology confirms details found in the Gospels, etc. Strobel’s interviews supply answers for a
multitude of attacks that have been made against the Gospels.
Certainly, as
Strobel himself admits in a subsequent interview, it would be impossible to
offer answers for every attack that has been launched against the Gospels in a
single book. Yet, many of the most
important attacks are considered. One such
attack that is not covered by Strobel is one that I personally had the most difficulty
with while studying in the Graduate School at Indiana University. One incidental verse in the text of John 19 was nearly fatal to my
faith, as I studied for my Master's in Hebrew at Indiana University, back in
the 1970s. At Indiana, I had studied at the feet of scholars who were not only
Biblical scholars, but also, especially, Jewish scholars, who had absolutely no
vested interest in helping me defend the Christian scriptures. I came
home to my wife, Linda, on many occasions, saying that Biblical problems had
been presented to me for which I had no answers. Linda always said,
"Just keep your faith; there will be answers."
But one day, I came home from class and said, "I think they
have finally done it. They have shown me an error in the New Testament
for which there can be no answer." The Jewish scholar who pointed it
out even stated that, while Christian apologists have found answers to other
Biblical problems, this is the one obvious contradiction that no one has ever
been able to solve: The synoptic gospels claim that the disciples ate the
Passover Meal with his disciples before he was crucified. You can't take
an "absentee" Passover Meal like you vote with an
"absentee" ballot. No one eats the Passover until the evening
of the first night (Friday night, being the beginning of Sabbath) of the
Passover Week. The paschal lamb is killed in the afternoon, before that
meal. But, according to John (19:14, et. al.), Jesus was crucified at the
same time they killed the lamb (on the day of Preparation). He was dead
and in the tomb at the time when the Passover was eaten. This was
presented to me as the ultimate proof that the Gospels made an error.
Romans 3:4 says, "God must be true though every man be a liar,"
and in John 10:35, Jesus says, "Scripture cannot be broken."
Still, I trusted my wife's admonition.
Just TWO days later, I was reading one of Millar Burrows's books
on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it jumped out at me. It virtually slapped my
face and said, "Don't ever doubt Me again (just as Jesus implicitly
scolded Thomas for doubting)!" I suspect that there was some
Providence involved. It seems that among
the Dead Sea Scrolls, a calendar was found that disagreed with the official
calendar of the Jerusalem temple cult. The Essenes (from whom John the
Baptist and his disciples came, some of whom subsequently became Jesus'
disciples) followed a different calendar with a different date for Passover
(and the day of Preparation). There were at least two different dates for
the first day of Passover in Jesus' time. It was possible for the
synoptic gospels to have used a different calendar when they said that Jesus
ate the Passover meal before he died. They
say that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I learned.
My faith has been thoroughly intact since then.
Christians will certainly stumble across issues
that non-Christians argue should be obstacles to believing in the truth and
infallibility of the scriptures.
Virtually everything a Christian might face has someone (usually cited
on the internet) who offers plausible answers for the issue. We return to Professor
Meyer’s teacher, Chaïm Perelman. As I stated earlier, Perelman
states on pages 24-25 of the Realm of
Rhetoric that presumption “imposes the burden of proof upon the person who
wants to oppose its application.” These
are some of my presumptions:
·
The resurrection did occur.
·
God did create the universe.
·
The Bible is inspired of God.
Furthermore, they are presumptions held by
a massive Christian Culture. My
presumption is that these premises are “true, until proven false.” If others want to prove that the Bible is
false, they must first determine every possible meaning of every Greek, Hebrew,
and Aramaic word in the Scriptures.
Then, they must consider every conceivable grammatical combination in
which those words may be found. Next,
they must consider every possible trope, every figure of speech, as a means of
determining the multitudinous possible interpretations of every verse of
scripture. And, they must disprove not
just one or two interpretations that they might prefer to debunk, in a “straw
man” logical fallacy approach. They must
disprove every single interpretation that is remotely possible—that has been
previously advanced or that will be advanced at any point in the future. The Gospels are true, until proven false.
