James Tracy over at anatheist.net posted a whole slew of articles over the past few days related to the gospels, the cross, and the resurrection to counter the recent celebration of Resurrection Sunday. I don’t have time to deal with all of them, so I’ll be focusing primarily on Are the Gospels Histories, which essentially deals with three topics: the cross, the tomb, and the gospels themselves.
The Cross
Eloi vs. Eli
James claims that Matthew intentionally changed Marks transliteration of the Aramaic version (Eloi) of Ps. 22:1 to the Hebrew version (Eli) to make the opening easier for the crowd to confuse with Elijah (Eleian). This seems like a simple issue of differences in language and the mere observation of the sources of the two different spellings supports this. Trying to argue that there must have been a devious rewrite of history here is unsupportable.
Last Words of Christ
This is followed by the worst argument James presents. He next argues that the Matthew and Mark accounts record Ps. 22:1 as the last words of Christ and compares them with the last words presented in Luke (Luke 23:46 “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit’: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”). However, it is not true that Matthew and Mark declare Ps. 22:1 to be the last words of Christ. Rather, they continue on to report that after quoting the psalm, Jesus cried out with a loud voice (Matt. 27:50; Mark 15:37), just as Luke reports, but without quoting His last words.
Some passages in scripture are hard and some parallel passage take some work to reconcile. This issue does not fall into this category and making this argument indicates ignorance or sloppiness on the part of the author.
One of those harder passages in the Johhn account does initially appear to contradict Luke. John records that Jesus said “It is finished” and then gave up the ghost (John 19:30). However, it is quite possible that Jesus said both. Therefore, there is no inherent, irreconcilable problem, even between Luke and John.
The Tomb
Significance of the Stone
James attempts to read into the gospel accounts a difference of opinion regarding Jesus’ resurrected state. He argues that because Matthew has the stone there when the women arrive, Matthew held that Jesus must have been able to leave the tomb without the stone being moved. Conversely, because Mark has the stone rolled away before the women arrive, Jesus must have needed it to be moved before He could escape. However, the gospels make it clear that the significance of the stone is not how Jesus left the tomb, but enabling people to see that Christ had left the tomb, which was the angel’s invitation.
Rolling of the Stone, Before or After?
While Mark, Luke, and John report that the women saw the stone rolled away upon their arrival at the tomb (Mark 16:4; Luke 24:2; John 20:1), Matthew reports that the women went to the tomb, an angel came down and rolled the stone away, frightening the soldiers, and sat on the stone. However, Matthew does not report at what point the women arrived. He reports that the women went to the tomb and what the angel did, but not the point at which the women arrived in the angels narrative (Matthew 28:1-5). By comparing Matthew to the other gospels, it seems likely that the angel(s) arrived before they did.
Angelic Appearance
James then attempts to create a contradiction out of the various authors description of the angels. He argues that because Mark describes one of the angels as a youth dressed in white (Mark 16:5) while Matthew and Luke describe the angels differently and in more amazing terms, Matthew and Luke must be embellishing the original account. While the Matthew and Luke accounts describe the angels in more impressive terms, they do not contradict the Mark account. Matthew reports that the angel’s appearance was like lightning and he was dressed in white (Matt. 28:3), extended and confirming Mark’s account. Luke simply reports that the angels wore shining garments (Luke 24:4), which fits with Matthew’s record that their appearance was like lightning. Even Mark’s account records that the youth’s frightened the women.
Two Angels
Nor is there any contradiction regarding the number of angels. Matthew reports an angel outside the tomb, Mark reports an angel inside the tomb. Luke reports two angels. John does not report any angels until Mary Magdalene sees two later. However, none of the accounts state at any time that no angels were seen, which would constitute a contradiction. Rather the accounts all report angelic appearances with similar messages at difference times, all of which could easily have occured.
To Gallilee
Nor is Luke in error when He records that Jesus had told them in Gallilee that He would go to Jerusalem, be killed, and rise again (Matt. 16:21; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22). It is consistent with all accounts for the angel to have said both that Jesus told them this would happen in Gallilee and that they should return to Gallilee. There is also no contradiction between Luke’s account of Acts and the disciples visit to Gallilee to meet Christ. They could easily have traveled to Gallilee to meet with the Lord and returned to Jerusalem to begin the Acts account.
Report of the Women
In another article, James also points out that while Mark reports the women did not say anything (Mark. 16:8), Matthew and Luke (Matt. 28:8; Luke 24:10) report that they went to tell the disciples. It is not perfectly clear how these accounts fit together, but it is easy to imagine several scenarios that reconcile the accounts: First, it is possible that there initial response was to say nothing because they were afraid. Second, it is possible that in obedience to the angel, they went to tell the disciples, but for fear, told no one they met along the way. Third, it may be that some of the women were too afraid to talk, but some were not. Even the Mark account continues on to record that Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples (Mark. 16:10).
The Gospels
James claims the gospels are copying off Mark because of a lack of deviation from the Mark account. Then he claims each deviation is a contradiction or intentional creation of fiction based on the implicit assumption that anything Mark omitted he omitted because it was not true. This is especially clear in his article regarding the soldiers outside the tomb reported in Matthew. His argument is based solely on the assumption that anything Mark did not include was excluded because Mark did not know about it and therefore it was not true, completely ignoring the obvious alternative that the authors were either eyewitnesses or consulted with eyewitnesses and therefore had different memories, perspectives, and goals in their accounts. This is especially true if Matthew and Luke were aware of Mark’s account. There would be no point in writing another gospel to simple repeat everything Mark said. Instead, the most reasonable reason to write another gospel would be to augment the Mark account. In reality, the variation in the gospels does create internal contradictions and provides strong evidence of independence in the accounts and the veracity of the events contained therein.
Thanks for actually taking the time to read that whole slew of articles and putting this response together.
I must say that nothing about your response is surprising or unexpected. You take an approach to these issues that is by now quite familiar to me. Your mission is to reconcile all of the gospels together, so you will propose whatever scenario that happens to best achieve that goal as the ‘most likely’ explanation. If the gospels are completely inconsistent on some point, like the last words of Jesus or the angels at the tomb, then your proposal of course will be that all of the details must have happened! Jesus said all of it! But what you end up with is a ‘gospel’ that is all of the gospels and therefore none of the gospels. While it may include most of the details spread over the four, is in fact an entirely new creation of your own. And the more that you find yourself needing to do this, the less likely and the less persuasive this exercise becomes.
In many of your replies you seem to be under the impression that my project in those posts was to seek out contradictions. It wasn’t. Rather, I am looking at various inconsistencies in the gospels – while taking into account their compositional history – and trying to determine what that might mean in terms of their historical credibility and the author’s purposes. I have moved beyond the game of finding contradictions for the sake of it.
Of course Matthew and Luke would not want to simply duplicate Mark’s gospel, even though they copy quite a bit from Mark and a second, unknown, source. My impression is that Matthew and Luke, quite independently, attempted to create an ‘improved’ version of Mark that ‘corrects’ Mark on a number of points they found to be unfavorable. These gospels were intended to replace Mark, not sit alongside it. That is why Matthew changes the empty tomb story. He does not agree with Mark’s theology and he is looking for a way to get around objections that the body could have been stolen. Likewise with changing the last words of Jesus. It’s not plausible, given everything I have examined with the gospels, that the authors would have decided to pick different ‘last’ words of Jesus and then just ignore the other stuff he said. This is Jesus, for crying out loud! No. Clearly Luke disliked the implications of what Jesus says in Mark, so he found something more palatable in the psalms to replace it with. Matthew devised his own way of dealing with the difficulties of Mark while preserving the last words.
When you deliberately change the wording or the meaning of Mark you are implicitly declaring Mark a fiction, and then replacing it with a fiction of your own.
All of this supports my argument that the gospels were not historical accounts but literary allegories in which the details can be freely changed, added, or deleted to serve the message. Need Jesus of Nazareth to be born in Bethlehem to make a connection with the Jewish Messiah? Fine, make up a birth narrative. Not happy with Mark ending with no appearances (as the earliest copies of it do)? No problem. Create some. In each case, both Matthew and Luke, without Mark to guide them, create utterly different and mutually exclusive birth and appearance narratives.
You can claim that they all happened. But my main issue with your approach in this post is that it is extremely uncritical from an historical and textual perspective and, therefore, not very convincing.
By: James on April 21, 2009
at 05:26
Is this an accurate summary of your view:
1 – Paul does not teach a historic Christ, but does teach that he fulfilled OT prophecy.
2 – All four gospels are not historic accounts, but stories manufactured from OT prophecy for teaching purposes.
?
By: arthenor on April 22, 2009
at 01:11
1) Paul is difficult to read and interpret, I will admit that much. My suggestion here is that Paul’s letters can be interpreted, without any violence to them, to not refer specifically to an historical Christ (at least not as portrayed later in the gospels). Paul seems to believe that all of this is encoded and therefore foretold in the Jewish Scriptures. This may be biblical exegesis – uncovering hidden meaning – moreso than fulfillment of prophecy.
It is important to keep in mind that I am not arguing that Paul could *not* have preached an historical Christ – only suggesting that he need not have done so. Like I said in my comment – you can read the gospel narratives back into Paul’s letters with some ease and thereby create a historical Jesus in those letters that does not otherwise explicitly exist in them.
2) My view is that Mark is the earliest of the four and the other three are all derivatives of Mark (John only loosely so). That makes Mark the only independent account. Mark does not explicitly connect Jesus with the Jewish Messiah in ways that Matthew and Luke try to do.
I think that Mark (and therefore the other synoptics) takes the spiritual Christ that is the essence of Paul’s gospel and creates an historical narrative around him while drawing on the Jewish Scriptures for inspiration and exegesis (for example, the suffering servant of Isaiah). Keep in mind that we are talking about an oral culture at this time, not a literate one. Only a few people were literate.
I actually have a post that has been languishing for months that outlines my basic view on the historicity of the gospels and whether or not they are based on eyewitness accounts. Maybe it is about time that I finish that up. This is, after all, a fundamental point of contention.
By: James on April 22, 2009
at 04:27
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at 16:04
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