Tag: Flavius Josephus

A Short History of the Sadducees

On By Jovan PayesIn College Papers, Judaism, New Testament Background, New Testament World, Second Temple Judaism

The Sadducees are portrayed unfavorably in the canonical Gospels as one of the Jewish sects Jesus had adversarial encounters. The word Saddoukaios, translated as “Sadducee” in English, appears fourteen times in the New Testament.[1] Unfortunately, these references do not provide programmatic insight into the group’s backstory and role in the Second Temple Period. They simply appear in the New Testament as a given element of the diverse Jewish sectarian milieu of “Second Temple Judaism” (515 BCE–70 CE).[2] What is clear is the Sadducees emerged as part of a larger conversation within a “common Judaism” during this period.[3]

The goal here is to provide a short historical sketch of the Sadducees. This sketch will examine the ancient sources that provide insight into this group’s origin, and period of activity, and after this reconstruction, attempt to provide some contours of their beliefs.

Sources

Our “most reliable” knowledge regarding the Sadducees comes from secondary ancient literature. There are no extant primary sources that were produced by the sect. Of these secondary sources, the writings of Flavius Josephus prove to be the most insightful, followed by the New Testament and other Jewish writings of the period.

Primary Sources. Bluntly put, “the Sadducees left no writings,” as Günter Stemberger observes. Stemberger further notes that attempts have been made to appeal to the Apocryphal literature 1 Maccabees, Sirach, and Judith as Sadducean but these attempts “fail to convince.”[4] The important Damascus Document (CD) is thought to be Sadducean by some scholars (R. H. Charles, L. Schiffman), but the “majority” view sees it as Essene.[5] However, other Qumran literature provides only indirect insight from halakhic texts (i.e., legal interpretations of the law).[6] There are possible allusions to the Sadducean legal views in the “commentary” Pesher on Nahum (“Manassseh”), the Qumran Temple Scroll, and the halakhic letter 4QMMT.[7] In general, scholarly debate makes the likelihood these texts are primary Sadducean literature nearly impossible to confirm.

Secondary Sources. On the other hand, Josephus and the New Testament provide much clearer source material regarding the Sadducees. In both cases, these two different bodies of literature offer episodic profiles of the Sadducees. The profiles provided within these divergent sources are not straightforward, unbiased history, but are part of the promotion of their own agendas (respectively) and must be read with sensitivity to the hostile biases against the Sadducees. This is not to say they are untrue, but that we must account for the specific framing of these literary sources.

For example, the first-century CE historian, Josephus, arguably offers the most insight into the beliefs, historical personalities, and character of the Sadducees, but he is a stoic-leaning Pharisee writing Judean history of the recent period with a slant toward extolling the greatness of the Flavian family in military victory over the Judeans.[8]

Likewise, the first-century New Testament documents Matthew, Mark, and Luke-Acts also provide profiles of largely adversarial interactions between Jesus and the Sadducees. These reveal the doctrinal disagreements between the sect and Jesus primarily over the resurrection. It does not explicitly articulate areas of common ground, such as the authority of the Torah, which is implied in Jesus’ use of Exodus 3:6 to affirm non-physical life after death (Matt 22:31-33; Mark 12:24-27; Luke 20:34-40). 

" 'I am,' He said, 'the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.' " (Exodus 3:6 NJPS)

Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.” (Mark 12:24–27 ESV)

John seems to refer to the Sadducean influence with implied references to figures of the temple (i.e., Levites, priests). In Acts, however, the Sadducees only appear in adversarial engagements with early Christianity in Judea (4:1; 5:17; 23:6–8). 

And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. (Acts 4:1–2 ESV)

But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the party of the Sadducees), and filled with jealousy they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. (Acts 5:17–18)

Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. (Acts 23:6–8 ESV)

The bias of the material in Synoptics and Acts documents the tensions between Christianity and the sect.

Origins

Time period. In the most basic sense, the historical origin of the Sadducees is a mystery. From the perspective of textual extremities, the sect, much like its counterparts, is not explicitly found in the Old Testament nor in the Hasmonean literature (e.g., 1–2 Maccabees).

They appear as a fully established and functional Jewish movement of the first century CE as documented in the New Testament and Josephus. In the first century CE, Josephus seeks to pinpoint the actions of John Hyrcanus (134–104 BCE), leaving the Pharisees to join the Sadducees (Ant. 13.288–98 [13.10.4-6]). Yet, Stemberger believes the Babylonian Talmud reproduces a version of this story, but at the time of king-priest Alexander Jannaeus (103-77 BCE; b. Qiddusin 66a).[9] Textually, there is no reliable explanation regarding the “when and how” of Sadducean origin. To account for Sadducean presence in Josephus and the Talmud, their origins are likely found in pre-Hasmonean movements along ideological debates found between other emerging sects, particularly those with the Pharisees.

Reconstructions. Scholarly reconstructions suggest a few theories. J. Julius Scott, Jr., notes that one theory uses the name Sadducee to etymologically connect it to the priestly family of Zadok (2 Sam 15:24–36). On this view, Zadok is Hebrew for “just” or “righteous” (saddiq) or even “court official” or “judges” as in the Greek syndikos.[10] Etymological views like this tend to be very problematic.

A related view looks at a Zadokite descendant named Boethius, whose family was responsible for several priests, as founding the Sadducees.[11] This historical speculation is from minimal evidence and is likewise problematic.

Our earliest historical literary source, Josephus, only provides the Sadducees as being active alongside Jewish “philosophies,” the Pharisees and the Essenes (Ant. 13.171 [13.9]).[12] 

At this time there were three sects among the Jews, who had different opinions concerning human actions; the one was called the sect of the Pharisees, another the sect of the Sadducees, and the other the sect of the Essenes.

Lawrence Schiffman argued that the Sadducees were an offshoot breakaway group from the Qumran community as a result of an unwillingness to compromise over the illegitimate priesthood.[13] There is just enough information to make connections for a reconstruction, but not the sort of data that establishes a definitive model.

Period of Activity

Terminus 70 CE. It is clear from the available sources that any attempt to reconstruct the movements of the Sadducees within early Second Temple Judaism will be difficult. This is patently clear for the pre-Hasmonean period and for the early Roman Empire. One helpful limit is agreed on by all students of the Sadducees. The Judaism represented by this movement ceases to exist after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE.[14] Leading up to this terminus ad quem, the secondary sources present a picture of an aristocratic Jewish movement that was influential in politics (religious and civic), priestly, and held strong “restrictive” religious beliefs that made it uniquely stand out in its approach to public life.

Activity. Despite the limitations of the sources, then, this picture goes a long way to providing a lens into understanding their movements in the first century CE.

When Josephus (c. 93–94 CE) recounts the period of transition to Albinus following the death of the procurator Porcius Festus (d. 62 CE), he recounts that Ananus, a Sadducean high priest (Ant. 20.199 [20.9.1]; Luke 3:2), flexes his authority as a priest and executes James the brother of Jesus (c. 62 CE):

“he assembled the [S]anhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned” (Ant. 20.200 [20.9.1]).[15]

While Josephus paints the unruliness of the Jewish aristocracy–even implying falsifying charges against James, and the harshness of Sadducean jurisprudence (Ant. 20.199 [20.9.1]), the portrayal is clear that Sadducean influence benefited from its association with the priests, the Sanhedrin, and the temple guards.

In Acts 4:1–3, this strong sense of deep-seated authority is also pointed to Peter and John preaching on the temple grounds (their turf!). The combined authority of priests and guards is used to stop their preaching: 

“the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, much annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead.”[16]

It must not be presumed that all high priests were Sadducees. Still, there was at least the perception that the Sadducees and the priests were strongly connected, along with the council, and had the authority to imprison those promoting contrary views, like the resurrection (Acts 5:17ff).[17] They seem to show interest in “new” teachers and investigate “new movements” as in the case of John the Baptist (Matt 3:7) and Jesus (Matt 16:1ff).

Gerousia. The Sadducean participation with the Sanhedrin and the Gerousia (“the council [synedrion] and the whole body [gerousia] of the elders”) in this matter of handling inquiry proceedings (Acts 5:21) is consistent with the presence of a pre-Hasmonean Jewish Gerousia (“senate”). This projection back to this historical period is speculative but not without explanatory power. Josephus “reproduces” a letter from Antiochus III to Ptolemy explaining the terms of their relationship, based on how he was welcomed fully by the Jewish “senate” (gerousia; Ant. 12.138 [12.3.3]):

“Since the Jews, upon our first entrance on their country demonstrated their friendship towards us; and when we came to their city [Jerusalem], received us in a splendid manner, and came to meet us with their senate, and gave abundance of provisions to our soldiers, and to the elephants, and joined with us in ejecting the garrison of the Egyptians that were in the citadel..."

Ancient Jewish sources connect political and civic power to a tight relationship between the priests and this “senate” of Israel (Jdt 4:8; 2 Macc 11:27–33). In fact, since “the Maccabean revolt (167 BCE) the power of the high priest increased” (1 Macc 12:6).[18]

The evidence is very tenuous and circumstantial, and its greatest weakness is that there is no explicit placement of a Sadducean priest at this early period.

Beliefs

Bruce D. Chilton observed that to understand the New Testament, one must become a student of Second Temple Judaism. Conversely, it would be that the student of Second Temple Judaism is well equipped to understand the New Testament.[19] This would seem to be a proper holistic approach. As previously mentioned, the available sources for understanding the Sadducean movement within a common Judaism are secondary and written in a way that potentially stereotypes them. They are still our best sources.

Josephus summarizes the religious beliefs of the Sadducees as he differentiates them from other sectarian groups, the Pharisees and the Essenes, whom he also calls “sects of philosophies.”[20] The Sadducean Judaism, though likely a minority sect, was a unique form within “common Judaism” as it shared the same basic worldview premises about God, the temple, and the Scriptures.[21] Thus, it was not something so distinct that it did not resemble its sectarian neighbors.

The picture from Josephus regarding the Sadducean belief system that distinguished itself from the “common Judaism” may be seen in the following four areas.[22] We must guard against treating this as a monolithic portrait of Sadducean belief (cf. Ant. 13.298 [13.10.6]).

First, Josephus claims they denied the resurrection and angels, “That souls die with the bodies” (Ant. 18.16 [18.1.4]). Additionally, “They also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades” (J.W. 2.164 [2.8.14]). It does not seem fair to describe them as materialists, as if this view denies the spirit plane of existence. Nevertheless, their canon (the Torah) includes several stories that should have left them open to discussions about the soul, the afterlife, and what that may imply.

Genesis speaks of the cherubim guarding Eden (Gen 3:24), Enoch taken by God without the phrase “then he died” (Gen 5:21), the angels who visit Abraham and Lot (Gen 18–19), Jacob wrestles with an angel (Gen 32:23–33), and the angel of the Lord in the Exodus and Numbers. It is striking that Jesus cites Exodus 3:6 and affirms that God is the God of the “living” even though the bodies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead (Matt 23:31–32).

Other later texts outside their “canon” were more explicit regarding the resurrection. “Many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, others to reproaches, to everlasting abhorrence. And the knowledgeable will be radiant like the bright expanse of sky, and those who lead the many to righteousness will be like the stars forever and ever” (Dan 12:2–3 NJPS). The emphasis of resurrection in the teaching of Jesus and the church would explain why the Sadducees are portrayed as adversarial in the New Testament (Matt 22:23; Luke 20:27; Acts 4:1, 23:7–9).[23]

Second, they denied fate. Josephus writes, “they take away fate, and say there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its disposal…” (Ant. 13.173 [13.5.9]; J.W. 2.164–165 [2.8.14]). While the ancient world had a role for Fate, it would seem unlikely that Josephus would be using a pagan ideology when explaining the Jewish theologies of the Pharisees, Essenes, and the Sadducees. As Jonathan Klawans notes, this use of fate most likely refers to terms such as “determinism,” “predeterminism,” or “predestination.”[24] Basically, how is human free will compatible or not with God’s sovereign will?

The difficulty lies in the lack of Sadducean literature to explain what Josephus means. The Second Temple book, Ben Sira 15:11–20, is regarded as a possible illustration of Sadducean thought on their denial of fate:

Do not say, “It was the Lord’s doing that I fell away”; for he does not do what he hates. Do not say, “It was he who led me astray”; for he has no need of the sinful. The Lord hates all abominations; such things are not loved by those who fear him. It was he who created humankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose. Before each person are life and death, and whichever one chooses will be given. For great is the wisdom of the Lord; he is mighty in power and sees everything; his eyes are on those who fear him, and he knows every human action. He has not commanded anyone to be wicked, and he has not given anyone permission to sin. (Sir 15:15–20 NRSV)

In short, there is “freedom of choice” (15:14–17), a denial of destined behaviors (15:11–12, 20), and a clear affirmation of “God’s absolute opposition to evil” (15:13, 20).[25] This lines up with Josephus’s words, “they say, that to act what is good, or what is evil, is at men’s own choice, and that the one or the other belongs so to every one, that they may act as they please” (J.W. 2.165 [2.8.14]). But this is a possible lens for understanding what Josephus intended to suggest.

In the New Testament, there is no explicit debate between Jesus and the Sadducees regarding “fate” along the determinism-compatibilism dichotomy. Jesus tells his followers to be leery of the “leaven” of the Sadducees (i.e., their teaching; Matt 16:5–12), but this points to a criticism that Jesus raises against them. They do not know how to interpret what is clearly in front of them, so how can you trust their teaching (Matt 16:1–4).

Third, they denied the oral tradition held by the Pharisees. Josephus explains the Sadducean logic for rejecting the oral tradition, as such are “not written in the law of Moses” (Ant. 13.297 [13.10.6]). To be clear, the Sadducees had their own interpretive traditions and sectarian logics within Second Temple Judaism. The reason they rejected these oral traditions is that they were “esteemed those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers” (Ant. 13.297 [13.10.6]).

The authoritative word for the Sadducees was the Torah, yet they had their interpretive traditions and “great” internal debates (Ant. 13.297-298 [13.10.6]). Josephus then notes that this movement was popular among the rich and did not win over (peithõ) the “populace” (dēmotikós). Perhaps the picture he desires to set forth is that the Sadducees were not only restrictive and biblical minimalists, but also out of touch with the average Jew. As a former Pharisee, Josephus’s bias against the Sadducees is likely apparent.

Fourth, they limited their authoritative scripture to the Torah for Sadducees, “[do not] regard the observation of anything besides what the law enjoins them” (Ant. 18.16 [18.1.4]). It is noteworthy that when Jesus responds to the Sadducean challenge against the resurrection, he responds from within the Torah to establish belief in the resurrection (Matt 23:31–32; Exod 3:6). The reality and viability of the resurrection is the core confrontation between the Sadducees and Jesus and the early church in the Gospels and Acts. Jesus uses their restrictive canon to affirm not only the existence of a spirit-afterlife but also the resurrection of the body.

It is difficult to determine whether this view is comparable to the Sola Scriptura formulation of the Reformation. Scripture Alone (or, Only) is the final authority for faith, doctrine, and practice over reason, experience, and tradition. The principle is mainly an attitude about the authority of Scripture over other competing regulators of faith and practice.[26] It does not necessarily offer a statement about the particular shape of the canon, nor does it mean an outright rejection of interpretive traditions (i.e., majesterial authorities). The secondary sources do suggest, at face value, that the Sadducees held a high view of the Torah’s authority, sharing similar logic as Sola Scriptura; they rejected that status of final prophetic authority for the rest of the Hebrew Bible of “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44).

Despite the biased nature of these secondary sources, it is generally agreed that the Sadducean beliefs are reliably transmitted.

The Sadducees and Christianity

It is remarkable to consider that all of the significant features of Christian theology are rooted in the Torah: sin and redemption, the afterlife and resurrection (Exod 3:6), Abrahamic promises to bless all nations (Gen 12:1–3; 26:1–5; 28:13–15), the offspring (seed) promise and its victory over the serpent (Gen 3:15), the promise of a prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15–19), the passover lamb (Exod 12:1–28), the scapegoat theology (Lev 16:6–10, 20–22), the two great commandments (Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18), the circumcision of the heart (Deut 10:16; 30:6), the priesthood and atonement (Leviticus), the prophetic office and its proofs by signs (Deut 18:20–22), the use of wealth to help the vulnerable among the land (Lev 19:9–10), the requirements of a king, the sceptor of Judah (Gen 49:10), justification by faith before circumcision (Gen 15:1–6), and so many others. This is not to suggest the Sadducees held to all of these interpretations, only that Christian theology fits within the textual limits of their canon.

Perhaps these themes were part of the conversion of Sadducees, or those likely within Sadducean influence, like members of the Sanhedrin council and the priesthood. It was the wealthy council member (bouleutēs), Joseph from Arimathea, who used his political power and influence to petition to take custody of the body of Jesus and lay him in his own tomb before sundown in keeping the Torah’s instruction to bury the executed (Mark 15:43). 

If a man is guilty of a capital offense and is put to death, and you impale him on a stake, you must not let his corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury him the same day. For an impaled body is an affront to God: you shall not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. (Deut 21:22–23 NJPS)

For he was “looking for the kingdom of God” (Mark 15:43; Matt 27:57; Luke 23:50). The early church made strong inroads among the priests, the narrator of Acts affirms, 

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:7 ESV)

It is not a foregone conclusion, then, that Sadducees were among the earliest members of the Christian faith. This should caution modern Christians from the convenient trope that the Sadducees were rigidly distinct without common ground.

Conclusion

This brief historical sketch of the Sadducees highlights four key points for a modern understanding of this ancient Jewish sect. There are no primary sources written by the Sadducees that are extant; all our information comes from secondary literature. The group emerged at some point during the Second Temple period and was active among the wealthy, the political and religious aspects of the Temple, and ceased at about 70 CE. Finally, the belief system of the Sadducees is explicitly stereotyped by Josephus and the New Testament; however, they reliably transmit core beliefs held by this movement. Early Christianity, as part of this period, anchored many of its core tenets from within the same religious literature the Sadducees regarded as their canon, that is, the Torah.

Endnotes

  1. The word appears seven times in Matthew (3:7; 16:1, 6, 11–12; 22:23, 34), once in Mark (12:18), and six times in Luke-Acts (Luke 20:27; Acts 4:1; 5:17; 23:6–8).
  2. Second Temple Judaism is the term I use for this period alternatively called Early Judaism by some. For dating, Larry R. Helyer, Exploring Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2002), 17; for the term, see John J. Collins, “Early Judaism in Modern Scholarship,” Dictionary of the Early Judaism, eds. John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 1–2.
  3. Collins, “Early Judaism,” 6.
  4. Günter Stemberger, “Sadducees,” Dictionary of the Early Judaism, eds. John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 1179.
  5. For the Essene view as the “majority view” see Helyer, Exploring Jewish Literature, 297.
  6. For this short definition of halakah, Helyer, Exploring Jewish Literature, 66.
  7. Stemberger, “Sadducees,” 1179.
  8. Josephus, Life 2.12. Steve Mason observes that one of the agendas of Josephus is propaganda for the Flavian family, “In the domestic turbulence that followed Nero’s suicide (June 68), their claim to have conquered a foreign enemy gave them unique bona fides as men capable of uniting Rome in peace,” A History of the Jewish War: A.D. 66–74 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 3.
  9. “Sadducees,” 1180.
  10. J. Julius Scott, Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995), 206–07.
  11. Stemberger, “Sadducees,” 1180.
  12. “Josephus is the primary source in every description of the Jewish religious parties of the first century,” see Günter Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 5.
  13. Michelle Lee-Barnewall, “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes,” The World of the New Testament, eds. Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 221–22.
  14. Stemberger, “Sadducees,” 1180.
  15. The translation of Josephus is from William Whiston, The Works of Josephus, new ed. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).
  16. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from the Bible are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Nelson, 1989).
  17. Scott, Jewish Backgrounds, 208.
  18. G. H. Twelftree, “Sanhedrin,” Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 2nd ed, eds. (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2016), 837.
  19. Bruce D. Chilton, A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible (Wilmington: Glazier, 1984), 13. The quote is the opening line to his book: “Anyone who wishes to understand the New Testament is, consciously or not, a student of early Judaism.”
  20. He calls them “sects” (Life 2.10; Ant. 13.171, 293; 20.199) and philosophies in (Ant. 18.11).
  21. Josephus, Ant. 18.17. In comparison to E. P. Sanders who emphasized a “common Judaism” for understanding of the shared but diverse religious milieu of Second Temple Judaism, C. S. Lewis pleaded his case for the Christian faith by arguing for a “mere Christianity,” that is there are things that are “agreed, or common, or central” to the Christianity that is not bound to denominational lines, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1984), 8.
  22. I follow Stemberger’s discussion in “Sadducees,” 1180.
  23. Since the Torah mentions angels, scholars like Stemberger and N. T. Wright find it unlikely that Josephus is correct about the Sadducean view of angels (“Sadducees,” 1180; Contemporaries, 70). The book of Acts seems to clearly assert the same understanding of Josephus. Wright argues that this passage has been poorly translated and flattened, see The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 132–33.
  24. Jonathan Klawans, “Josephus on Fate, Free Will, and Ancient Jewish Types of Compatibilism,” Numen 56.1 (2009): 47–48.
  25. Klawans, “Josephus on Fate, Free Will,” 51–52.
  26. See, D. A. Carson, “Sola Scriptura: Then and Now.” The Gospel Coalition.

Works Cited

Carson, D. A. “Sola Scriptura: Then and Now.” The Gospel Coalition.

Chilton, Bruce D. A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible: Jesus’ Use of the Interpreted Scripture of His Time. Good News Studies 8. Edited by Robert J. Karris. Wilmington: Glazier, 1984.

Collins, John J. “Early Judaism in Modern Scholarship.” Pages 1–23 in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism. Edited by John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.

Helyer, Larry R. Exploring Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period: A Guide for New Testament Students. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2002.

Klawans, Jonathan. “Josephus on Fate, Free Will, and Ancient Jewish Types of Compatibilism.” Numen 56.1 (2009): 44–90.

Lee-Barnewall, Michelle. “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.” Pages 217–27 in The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts. Edited by Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013.

Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan, 1980.

Mason, Steve. A History of the Jewish War: A.D. 66–74. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Scott, J. Julius, Jr. Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament. 1995. Reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 2000.

Stemberger, Günter. Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes. Translated by Allan W. Mahkne. Minneapolis: Fortress,1995.

_____. “Sadducees.” Pages 1179–81 in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism. Edited by John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.

Twelftree, G. H. “Sanhedrin.” Pages 836–40 in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. 2nd edition. Edited by Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2013.

Wright, Nicholas T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God 3. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003.

Does God Exist?

On By Jovan PayesIn Articles, Carolina Messenger, Christian Apologetics, Cosmological, Moral Argument, natural theology, Ontological, Publications, Teleological, Theology

There is no greater worldview question that divides humans so sharply than the following: does God exist? As a Christian, I believe there are many good reasons to assert that God does exist. This short piece offers a brief overview of these arguments for the existence of the Christian God.

The Case for the Christian God

The average Christian may think arguing for the existence of God is straightforward, but this is where we must get more specific. There are many worldview definitions of God/god that are distinct from how Christians have historically defined their Creator. Additionally, sometimes arguments for the existence of God only point to reasons to believe that a god exits, but not necessarily the God of the Christian faith. This is important because as a Christian casemaker, we do not merely argue that there are good reasons to believe a god exists, but that the God of the resurrected Christ exists.

For example, the apostle Paul employs well accepted natural theology to the Greek polytheistic mind and affirms this God resurrected Jesus Christ. In Athens, Paul affirms that the God of Israel (monotheism) is the god who is unknown to them in any specific detail (Acts 17:16, 22–23). They have knowledge of God in general terms: creator of the universe and mankind, manager of the world, and moral law giver (Acts 17:24–31a). This God will call all to moral account through Jesus, and he assures this expectation on the grounds of the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 17:31b). With this move, Paul excludes all other gods.

Step One: Arguments for the Existence of God

Arguments from nature provide good reasons to believe in the existence of God. They do not stand or fall together, but they do provide a cumulative case for the reasonableness of the Christian worldview. The following groups (or families) of arguments are used to make this case. I will offer a simplistic definition for each and then provide an example or two of how they make their case.

Cosmological Arguments: the existence of the universe demands a cause, whether natural (random) or supernatural (intelligent). As Baxter reminds us, “the argument is based upon the general, universal observation that ‘Nothing comes from nothing’” (I Believe Because…, 53). There must be a cause. Being careful with our words, it is more accurate to say “nothing [physical, material] comes from nothing.” Here’s why. Some things do exist necessarily. The field of mathematics reveals that numbers, mathematical sets or entities are not caused by something else. But things like people, planets, galaxies depend on other forces to exist (Craig, On Guard, 56–57). Physical things are contingent on past forces and cannot exist by themselves. As Ralph Gilmore says, these are “iffy” things that only exist “if” certain events or states occurred. Otherwise, you are left with a series of never-ending origin stories–an equally challenging miracle!

The cosmological argument makes its case from effect (the cosmos) to a necessary cause (God). There are both narrow and broad forms of this argument. Thomas B. Warren in debate with atheistic philosopher Antony Flew (1976) argued the narrow form, affirming that the first human came about either by evolutionary forces or by supernatural means. The apostle Paul employs the broad form when he argues that the material things of the world that make plain that there is an invisible, powerful, and divine God who created the world (Romans 1:19–20). Another broad form is known as the KALAM cosmological argument. In short, the argument goes as follow: whatever begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist; therefore, the universe has a cause. This ultimate cause is not contingent, nor impossible, but necessary. We call this necessary cause God.

Teleological Arguments: the presence of design in, or of, the universe demands that the design have a designer who employed intelligent agency. As an argument from empirical evidence, the argument moves from a design to an intelligent agent. The process has an intuitive aspect to it, making it a very accessible family of arguments. Nevertheless, the secular worldview explains apparent design as the result of “enough time and some luck”–certainly not the result of intelligent agency. It is important then to be clear on how to identify intelligent agency in the form of design.

To illustrate, the fine-tuning of the universe argument affirms that the cosmos is life-permitting in the most basic scientific sense: “organisms […] take in food, extract energy from it, grow, adapt to their environment, and reproduce” (Craig, 110). This reality implies a Fine-Tuner. But could this be the result of chance and time? Is this feature necessary to the universe? How do we distinguish between these options? On pure naturalism there is nothing necessary to the universe that requires it to be life-permitting. To the contrary, any potential life-permitting universe is “fantastically improbable.” Instead, a life-prohibiting universe is far more likely. The odds are so bad against a fine-tuned universe we should believe the system was rigged (Craig, 112–20).

Thus, the evidence of a fine-tunned universe points to its Fine-Tuner. It is not the result (contingent) of unintelligent processes, neither can chance explain its complexity, and it exhibits specific patterns characteristic of intelligence (Dembski, Intelligent Design, 127–49). As a watch, a camera, or a painting point to their intelligent agent, so the eye, the human body, the life-permitting features of the universe point to its Intelligent Agent, whom we call God.

Moral Arguments: based on the moral order of the human experience, the Cause of this moral order must be moral and its lawgiver (God). The argument observes a fundamental reality of the human social experience, the expectation of moral obligation. Regardless of worldview we all seem to play by the same rule, there are things you “ought to do,” and there are things you “ought not to do.” This holds even when there is disagreement over specific “oughts.” It has been well said,

Wherever man is found, he is convinced there is a difference between good and evil. Men may differ as to where to make the distinction between good and evil, but all men agree that such a distinction is to be made.”

Bales, The Law in the Heart, 56

The human experience is conscious of an objective moral law; objective moral laws imply a moral lawgiver; therefore, there must be a supreme moral lawgiver (Geisler and Brooks, When Skeptics Ask, 16).

Morality is a transcendent reality, not centered within a person. The conscience may have subjective elements but ultimately, moral obligations are not personal preferences. For example, why are hate crimes against women (kidnapping, sex-trafficking, etc.) objectively wrong and not personal preferences? Or, consider how the center of moral justice has shifted towards one’s subjective “psychological self” (truth) from which the moral imperative is to liberate oneself from all oppressive (evil) power structures (Trueman, Strange New World, 157). Even here the rules are the same, something is wrong in the objective world. External, transcendent moral obligations exist grounded in an objective reality point to the Giver of this moral code.

Ontological Argument: God is a necessary being, not a contingent being, and the cause of all contingent things. The argument is based on the very concept of the being of God, it is not directly based on empirical evidence as the previous arguments (cause, design, moral). Some regard this as the weakest argument for God because it depends heavily on abstract thinking. However, it has the same logic behind believing that mathematical items, like numbers, necessarily exist. Nevertheless, it relies on the likelihood that God exists (from evidence in the world). Thus, if God exists, he necessarily exists as the First Uncaused Cause (“God is”).

Step Two: From God to Christianity

Presently, we have surveyed arguments for the existence of God. From this general case for God can a specific case for the God of the Christian Faith be made? The above arguments help us to make certain measured expectations about God. God is: infinite, singular and powerful (cosmological); intelligent, powerful with deep knowledge (teleological); personal and relational, loving and holy (moral); transcendent, great and eternal (ontological). It is reasonable to suggest that such a God would likely seek to have a relationship with his creation and this activity may be identifiable in history in supernatural ways.

Of all the various world religions which exist, the Christian faith provides the most evidential and testable historical claim that “Jesus of Nazareth [was] crucified and killed [and] God raised him up” from the dead (Acts 2:22–24; 17:32; 25:19). The historical figure of Jesus is well attested by early non-Christian sources, including the circumstances of his death by crucifixion (Tacitus, Annals 15.44; Josephus, Antiquities 18.63–64, 116–17; 20.200). The earliest Christian claim asserted that Jesus was resurrected bodily and appeared to his disciples, and to skeptics and hostile unbelievers who converted to the faith (1 Corinthians 15:1–8).

Although many naturalistic explanations have been offered to account for the rise of the Christian faith, none have the explanatory force of the historical claim that Jesus rose from the dead by the power of God.

Conclusion

Does God exist? There are very good reasons to believe so. We must, however, take this a step further and affirm that there are very good reasons to believe that the God who rose Jesus from the dead exists.

Works Cited

Bales, James D. The Law Within Their Heart. Dallas, TX: Gospel Teachers Publications, 1981.

Baxter, Batsell Barrett. I Believe Because… A Study of the Evidence Supporting Christian Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1971.

Craig, William Lane. On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision. Colorado Springs, CO: Cook, 2010.

Dembski, William A. Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999.

Geisler, Norman L., and Ronald M. Brooks. When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook on Christian Evidences. Revised ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2013.

Trueman, Carl R. Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022.

This article originally appeared in The Carolina Messenger. To subscribe for FREE click here. There are slight edits in this version.

Do We Have the Old Testament?

On By Jovan PayesIn 2003, Bibliology, Christian Apologetics, College Papers, Freed-Hardeman University, Old Testament, Research Papers, Textual Criticism, Theology1 Comment

A person of faith often assumes that there are no problems ascertaining the wording of certain passages. But reality demonstrates that there are instances where this proves to be untrue. What a believer expects God to do in His providential care of the planet may not always line up with how life unfolds itself, but such disorientation has been common among the faithful.

Despite all the miracles employed to compel Pharoah to release the Israelites from Egypt, when the environment became less than comfortable fear and panic overcame God’s people (Exod 14). Even Moses had initial problems with understanding the situation he was faced with when he was sent to Pharoah to have him release the Israelites (Exod 5). Examples could be multiplied to demonstrate that a person of faith at times needs “more” in order to calm their nerves.

The following brief study gives attention to the textual basis of the Old Testament, considering a few lines of thought that contribute to a more informed outlook on how copies of the Hebrew Bible have been transmitted into modern hands, and what the sources of the copies used today so that translators are able to produce translations of the Hebrew Bible.

It must be emphasized that this is not an exhaustive treatment of the subject. So much more is available for analysis; be that as it may, a survey of this material is sufficient to adequately support the above affirmation of the adequate veracity of the Hebrew Bible.

A Skeptic’s Concern

A skeptical approach to the Bible essentially argues that for a collection of books so old, for a collection of books that have passed through so many hands, or for a collection of anonymously published volumes, it is a hard sell to affirm that the Bible – here the Hebrew Bible – is trustworthy in any sense.

Regarding the textual certainty of the Bible in general, skeptic Donald Morgan puts the matter bluntly in the following words:

No original manuscripts exist. There is probably not one book that survives in anything like its original form. There are hundreds of differences between the oldest manuscripts of any one book. These differences indicate that numerous additions and alterations were made to the originals by various copyists and editors.[1]

The argument basically affirms that there is no way for the Bible to be an accurate record of the words of God, and therefore, it is not “trustworthy.”  The sheer force of this argument is designed to rob the Bible believer’s faith in God. Implicit with this is the futility of having a religion founded upon the Bible’s guidance.

What can be said of this dire depiction, except that one must not be persuaded by mere affirmations, but instead by the available evidence. Not only is it paramount to see the evidence, but it is imperative that a proper evaluation is given to it.

The OT Accurately Transmitted

The Scribal Evidence

The overall scribal evidence suggests that the Hebrew Bible has been adequately preserved. The “scribe” trade goes back very early in recorded antiquity and therefore is a field of has a rich heritage of scholarship and workmanship behind it.[2]  J. W. Martin notes that the field of transmitting literature is a known trade skill from the 2nd millennium B.C. and observes, “men were being trained not merely as scribes, but as expert copyists.”[3]  Copying occurred during the Babylonian exile. F. C. Grant writes, “in far-away Babylonia the study and codification, the copying and interpretation of the Sacred Law had steadily continued.”[4]

This means that extending back beyond the time of Abraham (19th century B.C.) and Moses (15th century B.C.), down to the time of the exilic and post-exilic scribes (the predecessors to the “scribes who copied and explained the Law in the New Testament times”),[5] “advanced” and “scrupulous” methods would likely be used to copy any text, including the Hebrew canon.

The next question in need of an answer, though, is: what were those methods? Briefly, observe the mentality and professionalism which exemplify the sheer reverential ethic towards the transmission of the Biblical text characterized by the scribes.

The Hebrew Scribes revered the sanctity of the Scriptures. Moses commanded the people not to “add to the word,” nor to “take from it” (Deut 4:2). The Hebrews respected this command. Josephus weighs in as support for this point. In arguing for the superiority of the Hebrew Bible against the conflicting mythologies of the Greeks fraught with evident contradicting alterations to their content, Josephus bases his argument upon the reverential mentality towards these writings.

Josephus testifies to this sense of reverence (Against Apion 1.8.41-42):

[41] It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; [42] and how firmly we have given credit to those books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them; but it becomes natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them.[6]

William Whiston, Translator

Even though there are variants, produced by scribes, the fundamental historical truth stresses that the Hebrew scribes revered the Scriptures and dared never to add or take away from them. This important truth must not be forgotten. Moreover, this fact emphasizes the great care they had with the transmission of the text.

The scribal methods changed as time progressed, and this seems to be for the better and for the worst. One thing is transparent, however, and that is this: consistent with the reverential appreciation of the scriptures, the Hebrew scribes exercised acute professionalism in their methods, however superstitious they were at times. Rabbinic literature testifies to the early scribal school. Clyde Woods reproduces 17 crucial rabbinic rules demonstrating the rigors of the early scribal methodology.[7] The specifics concerning the writing materials, the preparation of the document, the veracity of the authenticity of the template, the conduct displayed when writing divine names, and other critical rules are thus enumerated underscoring the diligent professionalism of the early scribes.

The Masoretes succeeded and exceeded these scribes as a professional group of transmitters of the Hebrew Bible, laboring from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1000.[8] Lightfoot summarizes a number of procedures the Masoretes employed to “eliminate scribal slips of addition and omission.”[9] The Masoretes counted and located the number of “verses, words, and letters of each book,” thereby passing on the text that they have received. This intricate methodology in preservation is of extreme importance in modern textual studies,[10] and answers the reason why these reliable “medieval manuscripts” are commonly the underlying text of modern English translations[11] and represented in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (cf. English Standard Version).[12]

The concern for the accurate preservation of the Biblical text cannot, however, dismiss the fallible humanity which copied the text by hand, thereby producing inevitable scribal variations.[13] René Paché recounts the “herculean” endeavors of scholars evaluating the variants which have “crept into the manuscripts of the Scriptures” (e.g. B. Kennicott, Rossi, and J. H. Michaelis). These labors have also encompassed the analysis of the oldest versions and numerous citations and allusions from Jewish and Christian works. Robert D. Wilson’s observations in his work, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, noted that the 581 Hebrew manuscripts studied by Kennicott are composed of 280 million letters comprised of only 900,000 variants. These variants are boiled down to 150,000 because 750,000 are “insignificant changes” of letter switches.[14]

This is represented as 1 variant for every 316 letters, but putting these unimportant variants aside, the count stands at 1 variant for every 1,580 letters. Moreover, “very few variants occur in more than one of the 200-400 manuscripts of each book of the Old Testament.”[15] The point that needs recognition, however, is that we must recognize that the scribes have done their best, but there are variations that must be accounted for. These variations are not sufficient enough to call into question the adequate preservation of the Hebrew Bible.

Textual Evidence

After evaluating some of the problems in the textual evidence for the Old Testament, it can be said that the overall material adequately preserves the Hebrew Bible. This investigation is comparable to a roller coaster. There are both ups and downs, making one more confident while at the same time bringing some concern. For example, Peter Craigie notes, “there is no original copy of any Old Testament book; indeed, not even a single verse has survived in its original autograph. This is not a radical statement, simply a statement of fact.”[16]

The Bible believer might feel a bit disconcerted to know this fact, but there is no genuine need to feel this way. Truth endures because of its very nature no matter if one destroys the materials upon which it is written (Jer 36:23-32). Moreover, the scribal evidence adequately demonstrates an amazingly high level of accurate transmission and preservation of the Old Testament, even though the autographs are not available. One might speculate as to why these important documents are not providentially preserved for posterity, but the observation that such a course of action “is a highly dangerous procedure” is promptly recognized.[17]

Nevertheless, there are historical issues relating to this question and to the question of why there are such a small number of manuscript copies of the Old Testament when compared to the textual evidence of the New Testament. The most important fact is that the Hebrew scribes destroyed old manuscripts (autographs and copies). Clyde M. Woods writes:

The relative paucity [i.e. smallness of number] of earlier Hebrew manuscripts is due not only to the perishable nature of ancient writing materials (skins and papyri) and to the effort of hostile enemies to destroy the Hebrew Scriptures, but, perhaps more significantly, to the fact that the Jews evidently destroyed some worn out manuscripts to prevent their falling into profane hands.[18]

This explains why there is comparatively less textual witness for the Old Testament than for the New, however, as Donald Demaray notes, “there is the compensating factor that the Jews copied their Scriptures with greater care than did the Christians.”[19] There are accounts of scribes having burial ceremonies for the manuscripts,[20] and the storage “of scrolls [in a “Genizah” depository] no longer considered fit for use.”[21]

Cairo Genizah - Cambridge Library Blog - Fig1
Image Credit: Cambridge University Library Special Collections. “Fragments from the Cairo Genizah prior to conservation and cataloguing [sic]” (Emma Nichols, “Conservation of the Lewis-Gibson Collection: Re-Treatment of Manuscript Fragments from the Cairo Genizah“)

A second major factor is the A.D. 303 declaration by Emperor Diocletian to destroy any “sacred” literature associated with the Christian religion.[22] F. C. Grant frames the significance as follows:

As never before, the motive of the Great Persecution which began in 303 was the total extirpation of Christianity: […]. The first of Diocletian’s edicts directed to this end prohibited all assemblies of Christians for purposes of worship, and commanded that their churches and sacred books should be destroyed.[23]

This would further contribute to the lack of Hebrew Bible manuscripts.

Modern manuscript evidence for the Hebrew Bible, therefore, does not include the autographa (“original manuscripts”) and is generally never expected to, as desirable as the obtainment of these documents is.[24] What remains is the collection of manuscripts which together allow textual scholars to reproduce as close as possible the Hebrew Old Testament. This body of textual evidence goes very far to close the gap between the present day and the autographa. What are these manuscript witnesses to the Hebrew Bible? There are primary and secondary witnesses but where space is limited to the manuscripts.

Bruce Waltke observes that the textual witnesses to the text are the extant Hebrew manuscripts and Hebrew Vorlage obtained from the early versions of the Hebrew text.[25] While the term “manuscript” is typically recognized, the term Vorlage is probably unfamiliar to the general Bible student. This term refers to the text that “lies before” the translation or a theoretical “prototype or source document” from which it is based.[26] The Masoretic text (MT), the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), and the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are the principal manuscript witnesses. These manuscripts coupled with the Vorlage are the “documents” at our disposal.

Craigie’s presentation on this material[27] when compared to Waltke leaves something to be desired, and that something is more data and deeper investigation. However, Craigie presents the evidence that the manuscript evidence (including early translations) extends from the 2nd century B.C to the MT of the late 9th century B.C.[28] Leaving a considerable gap, as he notes, of “several centuries, the time varying from one Old Testament book to another, between the earliest extant manuscripts and no longer existing original manuscripts.”[29]

Waltke presents a fuller presentation of the two substantiating Craigie’s observations and would extend from the available data that the Vorlage of some of the DSS and SP points to a Proto-MT at least somewhere in the 5th century B.C.[30] Moreover, the oldest evidence is found in 2 extremely small silver rolls containing the Aaronic priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-26, dating to the 7th or 6th centuries B.C.[31] The text reads: 

May Yahweh bless you and keep you;
May Yahweh cause his face to
Shine upon you and grant you
Peace
(Michael D. Coogan)

Consequently, the worst case holds that the textual evidence goes only to the 2nd century, while the best case goes back some 300-500 years further back to a purer source as of yet unavailable.

H. G. G. Herklots has compiled a generous amount of information concerning the production of harmonization work which underlies the works of present-day manuscripts.[32] By doing this Herklots highlights that there are variations in the textual witnesses that the early stewards of the text attempted to dispose of but this has in some sense complicated the matter, making the study more laborious than it already is.[33] Variations are not as problematic as the skeptic supposes. To be sure, there are occasions of serious textual dissonance, but these are far from the plethoras of insignificant, obvious, and correctable variations.[34]

Waltke affirms, that “90 percent of the text contains no variants,” and of the remnant “10 percent of textual variations, only a few percent are significant and warrant scrutiny; 95 percent of the OT is therefore textually sound.”[35] Douglas Stuart notes that when considering the variations, “it is fair to say that the verses, chapters, and books of the Bible would read largely the same, and would leave the same impression with the reader, even if one adopted virtually every possible alternative reading.”[36] The variations of the extant textual evidence hardly, therefore, pose an indomitable problem to the adequate preservation of the Old Testament. The skeptic’s argument has no leg to stand upon.

Extra-Hebrew Bible Sources

Besides the extant Biblical literature of the Hebrew Bible, there are miscellaneous sources that demonstrate the veracity of the text, and implicitly note the accountability of the Hebrew Bible to a textual investigation. While these witnesses cannot reproduce the entire Old Testament, they can be compared with the manuscript evidence for accuracy and enlightened evidence when certain passages or words appear obscure. Briefly, consider two sources.

First, the Targums are a set of Jewish works in Aramaic that are paraphrastic (i.e. “interpretive translation”) of parts of the Old Testament.[37] Targums are said to be used in the synagogue to give the Aramaic-speaking Jews the “sense” of the Hebrew Bible.[38] This is comparable to the verbal translation that had to occur at the inauguration of the Law under Ezra, where there were assistants who “gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Neh 8:8 ESV).

Targums have been written upon every section of the Hebrew Bible; they ranged from “very conservative” to “interpretive” (Onkelos and Jonathon respectively), and are useful for the light they show upon traditional Jewish interpretation.[39] In the history of the transmission of the Hebrew Bible, at times the Targum was placed along the side of a Hebrew text, a Greek text, and a Latin text (as in the Complutensian Polyglot) to “enable a reader with little Hebrew to understand the meaning of the Scriptures in his own language.”[40] It seems agreeable to suggest and affirm that the Targum serves as an appropriate and practical source to obtain a general understanding of the Hebrew text, which will definitely aid the textual scholar in analyzing obscure passages.

Second, there is the New Testament, which is a virtual galaxy of Old Testament citations and allusions as it connects Jesus and his followers as a continuation -fulfillment- of its message. Consequently, it serves as a proper witness to the passages cited or alluded to. E. E. Ellis writes:

there are some 250 express citations of the Old Testament in the New. If indirect or partial quotations and allusions are added, the total exceeds a thousand.[41]

The Greek New Testament, published by the United Bible Society, has 2 notable reference indexes. The first index lists the “Quotations” while the other catalogs “Allusions and Verbal Parallels.”[42]

The New Testament writers used and quoted not only the Hebrew Bible, but also the LXX (with some variations suggesting different Greek translations), and other sources such as the Old Testament Targums.[43] In addition, the New Testament, in terms of textual evidence (manuscript, early version, and patristic quotations), is the most attested document from antiquity[44] emphasizes the reliability of the New Testament evidence for the Old Testament.[45]

Concluding Thoughts

In summation, we have examined some of the evidence in a survey and observed that the typical skeptical claim against the Bible is fallacious. We are more than confident that the textual transmission of the Bible has adequately preserved the Bible. There are so many avenues from which data pours in that for all practical purposes the gap from these extant materials to the originals is irrelevant. Gaps of greater magnitude exist for other works of antiquity, but no finger of resistance is pressed against their adequate representation of the autographic materials.

The Bible experiences this sort of attack partly because ignorant friends of the Bible fighting with a broken sword affirm that we have the Bible and that it has no textual problems. Other times, skeptics misrepresent textual studies of the Bible in order to support their case that the Bible is not the inerrant inspired word of God. Be that as it may, the scribal evidence demands that the scribes held a high reverence and professionalism in the transmission of the text, the textual evidence is, though having some problems, near 100 percent sound. Moreover, the New Testament and Talmud are examples of sources that uphold the Biblical text and allow textual scholars to examine the accuracy of the textual data.

Finally, the skeptical attack has been viewed a considered only for it to be concluded that it is fallacious and of no need to be considered a viable position based on the evidence. In connection with this conclusion, observe some observations by Robert D. Wilson and Harry Rimmer. Rimmer writes that a scientific approach to the Bible inquiry is to adopt a hypothesis and then test it and see if there are supportive data that establishes it. He writes:

If the hypothesis cannot be established and if the facts will not fit in with its framework, we reject that hypothesis and proceed along the line of another theory. If facts sustain the hypothesis, it then ceases to be theory and becomes an established truth.[46]

Wilson makes a similar argument and ties an ethical demand to it. After ably refuting a critical argument against Daniel, Wilson remarks that when prominent critical scholars make egregious affirmations adequately shown to be so, “what dependence will you place on him when he steps beyond the bounds of knowledge into the dim regions of conjecture and fancy?.”[47]

Endnotes

  1. Donald Morgan, “Introduction to the Bible and Biblical Problems,” Infidels Online (Accessed 2003). Mr. Morgan is just a classic example of the skepticism that many share regarding the integrity of the biblical record.
  2. Daniel Arnaud, “Scribes and Literature,” NEA 63.4 (2000): 199.
  3. J. W. Martin, et al., “Texts and Versions,” in The New Bible Dictionary, eds. J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962), 1254.
  4. Fredrick C. Grant, Translating the Bible (Greenwich, CT: Seabury, 1961), 8 (emph. added).
  5. Grant, Translating the Bible, 10-11.
  6. Flavius Josephus, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, trans. William Whiston (repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987).
  7. Clyde M. Woods, “Can we be Certain of the Text? – Old Testament,” in God’s Word for Today’s World: The Biblical Doctrine of Scripture (Kosciusko, MI: Magnolia Bible College, 1986), 98.
  8. Martin, et al., “Texts and Versions,” 1255; René Paché, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, trans. Helen I. Needham (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1969), 187.
  9. Neil R. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001), 92.
  10. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 92.
  11. Peter C. Craigie, The Old Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1986), 32.
  12. English Standard Version of The Holy Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), ix.
  13. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 91.
  14. Robert D. Wilson, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, revised ed., Edward J. Young (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1967), .
  15. ctd. in Paché, Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, 189–90.
  16. Craigie, The Old Testament, 34.
  17. Dowell Flatt, “Can we be Certain of the Text? – New Testament,” in God’s Word for Today’s World: The Biblical Doctrine of Scripture (Kosciusko, MI: Magnolia Bible College, 1986), 104: “The books of the New Testament were originally copied by amateurs,” the variants multiplied from persecution pressures and translations issues up until the “standardization of the text” in the 4th to 8th centuries A.D.
  18. Woods, “Can we be Certain of the Text?,” 96.
  19. Donald E. Demaray, Bible Study Sourcebook, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1964), 35; Flatt, “Can we be Certain of the Text?,” 106.
  20. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 90.
  21. Martin, et al., “Texts and Versions,” 1256-57; Paché, Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, 187-88; F. C. Grant notes that the Synagogue of Old Cairo’s Geniza has been found, throwing “great light upon Biblical studies” (Translating the Bible, 40). Biblical scrolls were discovered from 1890 and, onwards including Targums and rabbinic literature (Martin, et al., “Texts and Versions,” 1256-57).
  22. Michael Grant, The Roman Emperors: a Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 B.C.–A.D. 476 (1985; repr., New York, NY: Barnes & Noble, 1997), 208.
  23. Grant, Translating the Bible, 208.
  24. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 90.
  25. Bruce K. Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” in Foundations for Biblical Interpretation, eds. David S. Dockery, et al. (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1994), 159-68.
  26. Matthew S. DeMoss, Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2001), 128.
  27. Craigie, The Old Testament, 32-37.
  28. Craigie, The Old Testament, 36, 32.
  29. Craigie, The Old Testament, 34.
  30. Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 162.
  31. Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 163.
  32. H. G. G. Herklots, How Our Bible Came to Us: Its Texts and Versions (New York, NY: Oxford University, 1957), 29-40, 109-23
  33. Herklots, How Our Bible Came to Us, 116-23, Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 164-167.
  34. Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 157.
  35. Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 157-58.
  36. qtd. in Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 157.
  37. D. F. Payne, “Targums,” in The New Bible Dictionary, ed. J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962), 1238.
  38. Payne, “Targums,” 1238.
  39. Payne, “Targums,” 1239.
  40. Herklots, How Our Bible Came to Us, 35-36.
  41. E. E. Ellis, “Quotations (in the New Testament),” in The New Bible Dictionary, ed. J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962), 1071.
  42. Barbara Aland, et al., eds., The Greek New Testament, 4th rev. ed. (Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 2002), 887-901.
  43. Ellis, “Quotations (in the New Testament),” 1071.
  44. Wayne Jackson, Fortify Your Faith In an Age of Doubt (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press, 1974), 70-75.
  45. Harry Rimmer, Internal Evidence of Inspiration, 7th edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1946), 36.
  46. Wilson, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, 98.

Bibliography

Aland, Barbara, et al. Editors. The Greek New Testament. 4th rev. ed. Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 2002.

Arnaud, Daniel. “Scribes and Literature.” NEA 63.4 (2000): 199.

Craigie, Peter C. The Old Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1986.

Demaray, Donald E. Bible Study Sourcebook. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1964.

DeMoss, Matthew S. Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001.

Ellis, E. E. “Quotations (in the New Testament).” Page 1071 in The New Bible Dictionary. Edited by J. D. Douglas. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962.

Flatt, Dowell. “Can we be Certain of the Text? – New Testament.” Pages 103-10 in God’s Word for Today’s World: the Biblical Doctrine of Scripture. Don Jackson, Samuel Jones, Cecil May, Jr., and Donald R. Taylor. Kosciusko, MS: Magnolia Bible College, 1986.

Grant, Fredrick C. Translating the Bible. Greenwich, CT: Seabury, 1961.

Grant, Michael. The Roman Emperors: a Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 B.C.–A.D. 476. 1985. Repr., New York, NY: Barnes, 1997.

Herklots, H. G. G. How Our Bible Came to Us: Its Texts and Versions. New York, NY: Oxford University, 1957.

Jackson, Wayne. Fortify Your Faith In an Age of Doubt. Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press, 1974.

Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. Translated by William Whiston. Repr. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987.

Lightfoot, Neil R. How We Got the Bible. 2d edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001.

Martin, W. J., et. al. “Texts and Versions.” Pages 1254-69 in The New Bible Dictionary. Edited by J. D. Douglas. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962.

Morgan, Donald. “Introduction to the Bible and Biblical Problems.” Infidels Online.

Paché, René. The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture. Translated by Helen I. Needham. Chicago, IL: Moody, 1969.

Payne, D.F. “Targums.” Pages 1238-39 in The New Bible Dictionary. Edited by J. D. Douglas. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962.

Rimmer, Harry. Internal Evidence of Inspiration. 7th edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1946.

Waltke, Bruce K. “Old Testament Textual Criticism.” Pages 156-86 in Foundations for Biblical Interpretation. Edited by David S. Dockery, Kenneth A. Mathews, and Robert B. Sloan. Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1994.

Wilson, Robert D. A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament. Revised edition. Revised by Edward J Young. Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1967.

Woods, Clyde. “Can we be Certain of the Text? – Old Testament.” Pages 94-102 in God’s Word for Today’s World: the Biblical Doctrine of Scripture. Don Jackson, Samuel Jones, Cecil May, Jr., and Donald R. Taylor. Kosciusko, MS: Magnolia Bible College, 1986.

Regarding the Divide Between the Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History

On By Jovan PayesIn 2017, Christian Apologetics, Freed-Hardeman University, Graduate Work, Jesus Studies, New Testament, Research Papers, Technical Studies, Theology1 Comment
college papers

There is a long-standing view that an impassible divide exists between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. This paper is about crossing this epistemic divide centered on what can be known about Jesus. Many scholars believe this divide cannot be bridged, but this paper argues that it can. This challenge reminds me of two cautionary tales.

Growing up in San Francisco, I was surrounded by bridges. Traveling northbound from the San Francisco peninsula, one crosses the Golden Gate Straight by virtue of the world-famous Golden Gate Bridge. Traveling eastbound, out of “the city,” there is the less famous double-stacked Oakland Bay Bridge, which is the workhorse among the Bay Area bridges. There are two events connected to these bridges that have taught me two relevant lessons.

First, few know that many said the Golden Gate straight could not be bridged. In fact, engineering experts said a bridge would never be built because the straight was too long, the winds were too strong, the waters would be a nightmare for construction, and the fog would further hamper the process. Yet, four years of construction (1933-1937) later, the impossible expanse was built. Sometimes, the naysayers give you the planks upon which to build your bridge.

Second, during the 6.9m 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, a large section of the top-level (outbound) of the Bay Bridge collapsed. I watched, on a small battery-powered radio/tv, a news report of a vehicle attempting to jump the divide, only to fail tragically. The vehicle had no ability to jump the gap. I learned that day that hope is not enough to cross a wide gap. We must evaluate the evidence to “look before we leap.”

Christianity and the Impassable Divide

These anecdotes inspire me to challenge the so-called “impassable” ditch at hand. It is not a small challenge, for the claim has been made by some of the sharpest minds in “thinking” history. It is, nevertheless, part of the calling of every Christian to be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15 ESV).[1] Peter was aware that Christians will be called upon to explain the connection between their behavior and their conviction in Jesus as Lord (1 Pet 4:1-5). Life and faith converge in Jesus. What some would argue is an impassable gulf -reality and value/significance- was the connective tissues of a Christian ethical apologetic. It may be argued, then, that first-century Christians were already crossing the “impassable” bridge between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.

Peter anticipated no epistemic difficulty -no crisis- explaining how “Jesus as Lord” connects with significance to the everyday issues of his life and his future. Accordingly, this early text assumes that the full identity of Jesus held an immediate significance to the lives of struggling Christians. It is the result of both his historic existence and his spiritual Lordship viewed as one tightly interwoven reality. This “interwoven reality” is not, however, the view of many within the academic circles of biblical and philosophical criticism.

This issue at hand is multifaceted and complicated, but it is not insurmountable nor impassable. One must evaluate the evidence and acknowledge the complexity of the problem at hand in order to offer a solution. For instance, there is a large time-gap between today and the first-century. This raises a lot of genuine historical questions all by itself concerning sources which provide any measure of access to Jesus. Further, those ancient sources must be evaluated to test their genuineness to weigh their authenticity and accuracy to verify if they are primary or secondary sources, literary or non-literary sources. These and many other questions are used to evaluate ancient sources that allow the historian to reconstruct a probable and revisable picture of the ancient past. If the current matter were simply an issue regarding sources, then there are numerous literary sources from the first-century which point to Jesus, the events and personalities surrounding his ministry, his death, and the belief and practices of early Christians. Many have discussed and debated these sources,[2] but the tension at hand focuses on a level a bit “deeper” than literary sources (though they will be considered).

At its core, the problem at hand is epistemic; that is, it centers on “how” knowledge is obtained, how knowledge connects the self “within” (internal) to the world “without” (external).[3] David Lipe briefly summarizes it as, “the study of the origin, nature, extent and reliability of knowledge.”[4] Vergilius Ferm points out that epistemology seeks to answer the following questions:

What is the source of human knowledge? What are its limitations? How do we come by our knowledge of the external world, of ourselves, of others? How can we trust our ideas as valid?[5]

“Epistemology,” in Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. Lefferts A. Loetscher (Baker Books, 1955)

Schools of thought, such as empiricism and rationalism, and the debates which they create have formed the basis of the dichotomy that pits the “historical Jesus” against the Christ faith-claim. In particular, with rationalism (Decartes, Spinoza, Leibniz), mind (a priori) is regarded as being given authority/primacy over the senses (a posteriori); that is, a priori knowledge is superior to a posteriori knowledge. Conclusions drawn would be deductively reasoned knowledge such as Aristotle’s “laws of thought.” On the other hand, empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) approaches knowledge from the other direction -the senses/experience; that is, a posteriori knowledge is regarded superior to a priori knowledge. This would be inductively experienced knowledge grounded in life.[6]

Enter Immanuel Kan (1724-1804). In the late eighteenth century, Kant would attempt to split the difference by attempting to synthesize and hold both in tension. That is, we can know “how” we know something, but the knowledge is completely subjective. Knowledge is only a perception, a “representation,” and not actually real to life (the thing in-itself).[7] Kant develops the thought this way:

all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; and that if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us.[8]

Michael Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant,” https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html

Yet, as Norman Geisler points out, Kant’s epistemology results into a self-defeating “philosophical agnosticism.”[9] Attempts like these to explain how we obtain knowledge is at the core of the so-called impassable gulf between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.

The Contours of the Impassable Divide

This debate fundamentally represents the struggle between connecting the tangible to the intangible, life and significance, the historic and the historical. In addition to a number of certain epistemic concerns, the divide is infused with an anti-supernatural bias which has manifested in at least five forms.[10] They are summarized briefly here, with the danger of oversimplification:

  • Gotthold E. Lessing (1729-1781) argued that there is an “ugly ditch” between historical contingent truths and the eternal necessary truths. His “ugly ditch” language has essentially framed the whole conversation.
  • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) argued that there is a gulf between facts (contingent truths) and values (experience/reasons) that cannot be bridged but by faith (not knowledge).
  • Martin Kähler (1835-1912) expressed his concern for a reconstructed (historical) Jesus that must be mediated by the trained hands of critical scholarship. Kähler affirmed an impassable divide between the historical (reconstructed) Jesus and the historic (real) Jesus that cannot be cross unless by faith evoked by the historic Jesus. 
  • Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) viewed that the “historical” has no connection to the eternal, so real history is immaterial to the “leap of faith” toward the spiritual/eternal.
  • Rudolph Bultmann (1884-1976), argued that Jesus —as built on untrustworthy sources (Christian testimony, myths, and legends)— is not relevant for faith nor spiritual truth claims. It is the symbolism that matters at an existential level, that is, the meaning intended by such “sources.”

These all reflect a gap, a ditch, a divide, for which it is claimed that they cannot be bridged. It will be, then, the approach of this paper to first briefly critique the arguments for this impassable gap. Then, attention will be given to ancient sources, both within the New Testament canon and outside the New Testament canon to demonstrate that history and value claims must be intertwined to make sense of evidence. From this, provisional conclusions will be made that are reasonable and consistent with this evidence.

Critique of the Impassable Gap of the Historical Quest

The problem with the arguments used to articulate the dichotomy of the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are typically self-defeating and beg the question at the methodological level. The “gap” issue significantly touches on the crux of the quest for historical Jesus. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) points to Lessing’s publication of Herman S. Reimarus’ Fragments in which Reimarus separates what the apostles said about Jesus from what Jesus said about himself.[11] Since Schweitzer, the publication of Fragments has been viewed as the early stages of the quest for the historical Jesus.

Gotthold E. Lessing

Reimarus influenced Lessing, and who in turn, affirmed a tension between the relationship of history and revelation. Lessing states this as “the ugly broad ditch”; namely, “accidental truths of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of reason [and revelation].”[12] For Lessing, a Spinozan pantheistic deist, there is no supernaturalism in the world. So, events are fortuitous (accidental) and have no meaning/significance of themselves. Why, because like Spinoza, Lessing argues that since God is immanent and extends throughout creation, he naturally governs the world with its unbreakable natural law. Accordingly, supernatural activity (miracles, providence, etc) is impossible because to do so would violate his own nature as expressed in natural law. Thus, miracles are impossible and God does not reveal himself in history. Thus, Jesus the real-person (a posteriori) is not associated with the faith-truth as the Christ (a priori) by definition. In fact, no religious claim can be absolutely true.

Lessing’s argument, however, presumes that “natural law” is inflexible. A further problem in Lessing’s epistemology is its self-defeating agnosticism that not only arbitrarily forces a divide between history and truth. For, in order to make the observation (a posteriori) that history and value (a priori) are detached from one another, Lessing must make an absolute value statement based on how history and value relate to each other historically. So, Lessing is doing what his thesis says is impossible to do: to intertwine history and evaluative judgments.

Immanuel Kant

This is essentially the same fundamental flaw in Immanuel Kant’s agnosticism (that he knows that one can perceive but not know a thing in itself). Again, Kant says,

We are acquainted with nothing except our way of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, and which therefore does not necessarily pertain to every being, though to be sure it pertains to every human being.[13]

Quoted in Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant.”

People only know what they think they know, and what they know is not necessarily true “in itself.” This is the tension of his contradictions (“antinomies”) which, therefore, force him to reject a priori (and ontologically) arguments for believing a thing to be true in itself. For example, what is logically necessary, is not actually necessary.[14] Consequently, the Bible is not the result of God adapting to human finiteness (which is logically necessary) but is instead a book of mythology. It is not actually necessary that the Bible be from God, and such a truth claim is only a perception. Instead, what has more logical value and tangible significance to Kant is one’s duty to their neighbor.[15] Thus, the events of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels, then, is a subjective statement of a spiritual truth-claim that Jesus is the Christ of faith.

In order for Kant to make this claim (that we only know perceptions, no what is real in-itself), he is must make an absolute truth (a priori) claim in a world that he has argued can only be perceived in a subjective manner. Kant self-defeats himself by crossing the divine he denies is possible cross. Would not the argument, “I know for certain that it is impossible to know a thing in itself” argue that Kant knows this as a historical truth claim in itself? Kant derails himself.

Søren Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard argued for a dichotomy which “real history” is unimportant to faith, or rather, that it is impossible to move from the historical toward the spiritual. Kierkegaard finds no causation between a historical event and meaning (its value, or truth). In fact, this is his great paradox when it comes to truth claims since human knowledge is unable to have certainty about meaning and significance. Thus, for example, spiritual truth is beyond human rationality. For Kierkegaard seeking how to explain or understand the nature of God, one enters a paradox/contradiction. The act to explain the nature of God, is in effect, to limit a full understanding of God. To be certain about something is to limit what can be known about something.

In this sense faith —in particular, Christian faith— is a different beast altogether, for it carries within it a built-in certainty to its truth claims. In Kierkegaard’s view, it is purely nonsense that by understanding what happens in history (Jesus of history), one can obtain knowledge of the contradiction — the non-historical (Jesus of faith). Therefore, fact and history are not as important to Kierkegaard as the “leap of faith.” The problem is, as Geisler sums up, “while the historical as such does not bring one into contact wth the eternal, neither can the eternal be divorced from real history.”[16] Yet, Kiekergaard’s case proves too much on this point, for “the shift in emphasis from fact to value leads to the denial of fact and its support of faith.” It is not that all of his observations are to be dismissed, but he undermines the role of fact to understand value-claims.

Martin Kähler

Martin Kähler, who builds on Kant, also voiced his concern that the “real Christ” is not the Christ of Faith. This point is easily misunderstood. Kähler rightly argued that historical research should inform faith, so he was loved by liberals but hated by conservatives. Kähler also rejected attempts to separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith and was loved by conservatives and hated by liberals. He served, therefore, as a middle ground historical critic, who was “loved” and “hated” by conservative and liberals but for different reasons. Kähler coined the phrases “historical Jesus” (historische) and “historic Jesus” (geschichtliche), yet what he meant by the terms is not how most employ the term today. The “historical Jesus,” according to Kähler is a reconstructed Jesus based on scholarship which may, or may not correspond to the “historic Jesus” — that is, the real-life Jesus. Kähler took issue with equation the two.[17]

It came down to two problems. First, there is limited knowledge, or the lack thereof, to sufficiently “reconstruct” Jesus. Second, believers are at the mercy of the “fluid results” of scholarly reconstructions about Jesus. Jesus was, therefore, mediated by the elite scholars. For this reason, Kähler declares, “the real Christ, that is, the influential Christ, with whom millions in history have had fellowship in a childlike faith… is the preached Christ.”[18] The proclaimed Christ solved this problem. For this reason, Kähler made a distinction between the “historical Jesus” from the “historic Jesus.”

The line he draws on this point, between the two, is too strong and undermines the fact that the New Testament builds its case upon sources which are built on eyewitness accounts (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-3). Even if one were to argue that there is a minimal amount of authentic evidential sources about Jesus, then to that degree a faithful reconstruction of the historic Jesus can be made and understood. Which in many respects is the case for everything that could be said about Jesus of Nazareth has not been recorded (John 20:30; 21:25).

Rudolf Bultmann

One of the most significant contributors to the dichotomy of the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith is Bultmann. Bultmann’s significance for New Testament criticism and theology are, according to Ricard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, equaled by few and excelled by none in the areas of form-criticism and the practice of demythologizing the New Testament.[19] Working on his form-critical methodology, Bultmann differentiated between the sayings of Jesus and the deeds of Jesus (e.g. Reimarus), between the pre-scientific worldview of Jesus’ day and today, and the fact that to accept this worldview would be to sacrifice one’s intellect. Thus, he argued for a non-historical symbolism based upon kerygmatic (proclamation) themes.

What matters from the New Testament point of view, he argued, are the transcendent truths of faith (existential meaning). Thus, the resurrection “myth” did not happen, but what matters is the transcendent truth the “resurrection” is suppose to provide.[20] However, form-criticism, when properly applied is about finding genres and even sub-genres of types of literature within a text(s). It is not inherently anti-supernatural as Bultmann wielded it. In one way, it is a tool for genre classification. In another, it provides the framework for what tools an exegete may require for interpretation.[21]

Yet, Bultmann infused his approach with a naturalism which rejects the supernatural by definition. Consequently, at the methodological level, Bultmann begs the question that miracles are not possible and builds an interpretive framework in which miracles do not make sense. However, if one employs a theistic worldview that leaves the possibility open that miracles are possible,[22] then Bultmann’s approach would not have created his mythological approach to understanding Jesus, which his student Ernst Kasemann viewed as docetic.

Ancient Sources on Jesus of Nazareth

Turning now to consider sources within the New Testament canon and those outside the New Testament canon. The New Testament documents clearly emphasize a concern for and establish the historical underpinnings of the gospel message. It is the presentation of Jesus as a historic, and not mythic, figure which leads Edward M. Blaiklock to affirm that “Christianity triumphed over its most serious opponent, the soldiers’ worship of the soldierly Mithras, largely because Christianity could oppose to the legendary Mithras the historical reality of Christ.”[23]

Canonical Christian Sources

Broadly, though, there are three tests of historicity, according to James P. Moreland, that establish that New Testament documents are “as reliable as, superior to, most other ancient documents.”[24] These general tests are: bibliographical tests, internal tests, and external tests.

First, is the bibliographical test, which establishes the number of extant manuscripts and how far removed they are from the originals. In the case of the New Testament documents, the extant Greek manuscript copies exceed 5,000 (not including quotations, ancient translation, lectionaries), in fragmentary or complete form, many of which are from the second-century. In this regard, the New Testament is the most attested document of the ancient world.[25]

Second, the internal tests evaluate any claims of representing eyewitness history. The Gospel accounts and Acts reflect eyewitness testimony (Luke 1:1-4; 3:1-2; ). Luke tells us explicitly that his Gospel is in keeping with three aspects of early Christian testimony: preexisting accounts, earliest eyewitness testimony, and those who served to deliver the Word to the world. Moreover, Luke chronicles his involvement as a collaborator with Paul (Acts 16:10-17, 20:5-15, 21:1-18, 27:1-38, 28:1-10). The letters reflect personal encounters with Jesus (1 John 1:1-4; 2 Pet 1:16-17; 1 Cor 9:1; 15:1-11), or with those close to first-generation disciples of Jesus (Gal 1:18-19; 2:1-14).

Third, the external test verifies if there is material evidence to confirm the reliability of the document. Edwin M. Yamauchi demonstrates that despite a long-standing skepticism against the historicity of New Testament, there are numerous significant and “insignificant” confirmation of the social, political, and geographical background of the New Testament and demonstrates the literary source to be reliable.[26] One instance may illustrate these observations. In Acts 18:12-17,  Paul stands before the tribunal of the governor (proconsul) of Greece (Achaia), one L. Junius Gallio. There is an inscription was found from Delphi with Gallio’s name on it. Most likely it refers to his proconsulship during July 51 to July 52, which means Paul’s year-and-a-half stay began a year or so before this time (ca. 50-51).[27]

Non-Christian Sources

The other side of this issue is ancient testimony outside of the New Testament. Rudolf Bultmann belief that the quest for the historical Jesus lacked non-Christian sources. He ignored Christian sources specifically because they eyewitness documents which he believed inserted legendary and mythological elements, and therefore, cannot be trusted. While the extant sources are not all the kinds which a historian might like (legal documentation, birth records, etc.), what is available serve as independent literary reinforcement of that Jesus of History and Christ of faith are one interwoven as one figure.

E. M. Blaiklock surveys the sort of extant ancient sources available from the first-century. The majority of which are not focused on the region of Judea nor on history. In fact, he writes, “Bookends set a foot apart on this desk where I write would enclose the works from those significant years. Curiously, much of it comes from Spanish emigrants in Rome.”[28] Yet, what is available impressively corroborates with the historical framework of the New Testament and the significance they assert for Jesus of Nazareth.

Non-Christian sources, moreover, may be grouped into six categories of various weight and detail.[29] There are ancient historians (Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Thallus), government official correspondence between (Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Emperor Hadrian), Jewish sources (Talmudic references to Jesus, Toledoth Jesu document), other Gentile sources which do not speak favorably of Christianity (Lucian, Mara Bar-Serapion), and gnostic sources (Gospel of Truth, Apocryphon of John, Treatise on Resurrection). The latter certainly have their theological slants, but they to point to Jesus as a historical figure.

Of these non-Christian sources, two sources will receive particular attention: first-century references to Jesus in the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (ca. AD 56-121) and Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (ca. AD 37-100).

Cornelius Tacitus

Tacitus was a Friend of Pliny and Suetonius. He began writing history in AD 98 with a volume about his father-in-law, Argicola, and another about Germany, Germania. Then early in the second-century, Tacitus published two more volumes, Histories (ca. AD 100-109) and Annals (ca. AD 109-116).[30] The Histories focus on the political troubles of Rome during A.D. 69-96, including the destruction of Jerusalem (Histories 5). The Annals chronicle the reign of Augustus to Nero (AD 14-68). In describing the depravity of the Caesars, Tacitus digresses with a note about the burning of Rome:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.[31]

(Annals 15.44)

Robert L. Wilken explains the usage of the term “superstition” (Lat. superstitio) in its common and familiar sense, “the term superstition referred to beliefs and practices that were foreign and strange to the Romans… that had penetrated the Roman world from surrounding lands.”[32] This is how Tacitus and other Romans felt about such groups.

More to the point, Tacitus is a Roman historian with no interest in proving Jesus existed; however, he knew the basic facts of his death as he “suffered the extreme penalty” and during the proper time frame and location while Pilate was procurator in Judea (AD 26–36).

Flavius Josephus

Flavius Josephus is a self-described first-century Pharisee and Jewish rebel during the early Jewish rebellion against Rome, who surrendered to Rome.[33] He wrote of the Jewish and Roman dynamics of the Jewish War provides a retelling of Jewish history in Antiquities of the Jews, an autobiography (Vita), and a defense of Judaism (Against Apion). There are three references in his works which are of interest, Antiquities 18:63-64, 18.116-119 and 20.200. The latter two are rather straightforward as they reference John the Baptist and James the brother of Jesus.

The first reference is Antiquities 18.116–117, in which John the Baptist is mentioned:

Now, some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.

The reference is strikingly similar to the way the Gospel accounts outline the fate of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-29).

The second reference is Antiquities 20.200, in which the Christian leader, James, is mentioned in passing as a digression to Josephus’s discussion of Ananus’s ambition to exercise his authority. Josephus mentions him as “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ… James”:

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was put upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and, when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

Jesus is James’s “famous” brother. The Gospel accounts describe Jesus as having siblings (Matt 13:55; Mark 6:3; John 6:42) and the apostle Paul acknowledged James as “the Lord’s brother” (Gal 1:19). Interestingly, Origen (ca. 184-253) comments on this reference, “though he [Josephus] did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great” (Comm in Matt 10.17).[34]

The third reference, known as the Testimonium Flavianum (18:63-64), is complicated by Josephus’ favorable description of Jesus. The passage includes such descriptions of that question whether one should call Jesus “a man,” “he was [the] Christ,” “a doer of wonderful works,” “for he appeared to them [the disciples] alive again the third day,” and “as the divine prophets had foretold.” The textual strength of the passage is strong, but it appears to be out of balance with what is know about Josephus’s belief about Jesus (Origen above).

Origen, who appears knowledgeable of this material in Josephus, curiously does not seize upon the passage as it stands today. Eusebius appears to be the first ancient author to cite the testimonium in its present form (Ecclesiastical History 1.11).[35] James South argues, along with many scholars, that this passages is evidence of a tampering with the passage, the “culprit” most likely being an unknown Christian scribe.[36] The general approach, then, is to redact the passage to eliminate the positive language from the passage.[37] Like the following redaction of William Whiston’s translation:

Now, there was about this time, Jesus a wise man. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Nevertheless, historical scholarship agrees that Josephus said something about Jesus here. What is clear, though, is that Josephus, a premier historian of first-century Judea is fully aware of Jesus, as he is aware of Pilate, Herod, John the Baptist, and James.

Concluding Thoughts

A study like this needs to come to a sense of balance with regards to objectivity. Norman Geisler reminds that “if objective means, ‘a fair but revisable presentation that reasonable men and women should accept,’ then the door is open to the possibility of objectivity.”[38] The goal has been to cross the impassable epistemic gulf believed to exist between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. It is believed that the goal has been reached. There are just a few general observations which should be made in conclusion. First, E. P. Sanders makes an important point and warning about sifting through the available sources concerning Jesus:

Ancient history is difficult. It requires above all common sense and a good feel for sources. Our sources contain information about Jesus, but we cannot get at it by dogmatically deciding that some sentences are completely accurate and some are fiction. The truth will usually lie somewhere in between. As I have already said more than once, and may repeat several more times, we have very good knowledge of Jesus at a somewhat general level. With regard to chronology, we know that he was active during some part of the period 26-36 C.E. It is wrongheaded to try to turn the gospels – and, for that matter, Josephus – into modern encyclopaedia [sic] articles, or to suppose that one sentence is dead right, and the others are completely wrong.[39]

Only when we seek to establish by the ancient evidence what can be established historically, then we are in the position to intertwine reliable history (a posteriori) and the significance (a priori) of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The impossible bridge, then has been made. Second, despite the complexity of historic inquiry, a worldview and framework can be articulated that is objective and not be anti-supernatural.

Third, both Christian and non-Christian sources do provide evidence and information that is objective and informative regarding what was believed to have occurred by eyewitnesses and historians. Finally, at minimum here, it can be affirmed that historical evidence points to Jesus as a “wise man” who “drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles,” died under the proconsulship of “Pilate” who was influenced by the “principal men” among the Jews to condemned Jesus “to the cross;” nevertheless, Jesus had disciples “that loved him at the first who did not forsake” and they are may thought of as “tribe of Christians… so named from him… [and] … are not extinct at this day.” Bridge toll paid.

Endnotes

  1. Unless otherwise stated all quotations are taken from the English Standard Version of The Holy Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001).
  2. Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), 187–228; F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974); Edward M. Blaiklock, Jesus Christ: Man or Myth? (1974; repr. Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1984),19–31; Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1987), 190–233; Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University, 1989), 139–49.
  3. C. Stephen Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics and Philosophy of Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002), 39–40.
  4. David L. Lipe, Values in Thought and Action (Henderson, TN: Hester Publications, 2001), 7.
  5. Vergilius Ferm, “Epistemology,” in Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. Lefferts A. Loetscher (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1955), 1:385.
  6. Ferm, “Epistemology,” 386.
  7. Michael Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant,” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/#TraIde.
  8. Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant.”
  9. Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapid, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 401–05.
  10. Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 141–42.
  11. Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 385–86
  12. Ricard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism, 3rd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 102.
  13. Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant.”
  14. Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 402.
  15. Lipe, Values, 78.
  16. Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 409.
  17. Soulen and Soulen, Biblical Criticism, 92.
  18. Martin Kähler, “Martin Kähler on the Historical Jesus,” in The Christian Theology Reader, 2d ed., ed. Alister E. McGrath (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), 294.
  19. Soulen and Soulen, Biblical Criticism, 28, Evans, Apologetics and Philosophy, 18–19.
  20. Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 517–18; Colin Brown, “Quest of Historical Jesus,” DJG 334–35.
  21. Stephen H. Travis, “Form Criticism,” in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods, ed. I. Howard Marshall (1977; repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 153–64.
  22. Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 320–30.
  23. Blaiklock, Jesus Christ, 11.
  24. James P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (1987; repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1988), 133–57.
  25. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, 135-37; Philip W. Comfort, Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography and Textual Criticism (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 103–98.
  26. Edwin Yamauchi, “Archaeology and the New Testament,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gæbelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), 1:647–69.
  27. Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 545-86; Mark Cartwright, “Corinth,” http://www.ancient.eu/corinth/.
  28. Blaiklock, Jesus Christ, 11-12; see, Wayne Jackson, “Jesus Christ: Myth or Genuine History,” https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1061-jesus-christ-myth-or-genuine-history.
  29. Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 187–228; Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 381–85; James T. South, Just Jesus: The Evidence of History, Kindle ed. (Chillicothe, OH: DeWard Publications, 2012), loc. 237–555.
  30. Albert A. Bell, Exploring the New Testament World (Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1998), 289.
  31. Tacitus, Annals 15.44. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi1351.phi005.perseus-eng1:15.44.
  32. Robert L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), 50.
  33. Bell, New Testament World, 289.
  34. Origen, “Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew Book 10.” http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/101610.htm.
  35. Ken Olsen, “Eusebius Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum,” http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5871.
  36. South writes, “What we have here is likely a legitimate text from Josephus, in which he mentioned Jesus, but which has been re-worked by a Christian editor” (Just Jesus, loc. 318); Charles K. Barrett, New Testament Background: Selected Documents (1956; repr., New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1961), 198.
  37. Olsen, “Eusebius Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum”; Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 39.
  38. Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 320–30.
  39. E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (repr. London: Penguin Books, 1995), 55–56.

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