Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Committed Apologists and Serious Historians Written by Bart Ehrman, read by Ken Teutsch not to be the dog across the street who won't stop barking all night, but here is another post on committed Christian apologists who insist they are doing serious history to ward off a misunderstanding. It is absolutely possible for a Bible believing conservative evangelical to be a university level academically gifted peer review publishing respected in the field geologist.
[00:00:36] But it is not possible for her to be a university level academically gifted peer review publishing geologist if her views of geology are influenced by her Bible believing conservative evangelical faith. To wit, if she tries to publish an article in an academic journal arguing that the earth really is about 6,000 years old.
[00:00:59] That's what she's learned in church growing up and it's always seemed right and tries to cite scientific evidence for it. It will not be published and she will jeopardize her career. That's not because of prejudice or bias, but because every serious scientist in the world knows that it is not true, it cannot be true, and that if anyone thinks it is true, it is not because of the science, but because of something else that makes them want to think it's true. In this case the fundamentalist idea that the world is 6,000 years old.
[00:01:36] So too, if a serious quantum physicist is pondering the very weird phenomenon of entrapment and realizes it not only doesn't make inherent sense but can't be explained by the laws of physics and therefore concludes that the only explanation is that God makes it happen, he might deep down think so, but it's not a scientific conclusion by definition since it's not demonstrable on scientific grounds. And if he writes an article arguing that the evidence for the view is that no one else can figure it out on other grounds that would never be taken seriously as a scientific conclusion. It will never be published in an academic science journal, which gets me to apologists and historians.
[00:02:24] It is certainly possible for someone to be a committed evangelical Bible believing Christian and at the same time a serious New Testament early Christianity scholar.
[00:02:35] When I was in my graduate program, my idol was a scholar named Gordon Fee who taught at Gordon Conwell Seminary. I almost went to do my PhD with him instead of at Princeton with Metzger.
[00:02:48] He was the premier textual critic of his generation, a truly great scholar, and the leading expert on analyzing patristic evidence quotations of church fathers for establishing the original form of the New Testament text.
[00:03:03] He was also a Pentecostal preacher and evangelist who could go from a hardcore international conference of textual scholars one day to preach at a revival meeting the next.
[00:03:15] How could he be both things at once?
[00:03:18] He simply didn't allow his firm evangelical commitments to play any role in his analysis of the manuscripts and patristic quotations of the New Testament.
[00:03:29] No role at all.
[00:03:31] That is not the case with the conservative Christian apologists, at least the ones I know of in our world, who claim to be basing their apologetic defenses of the Christian faith on serious historical investigation of those who do so. My friend Mike Lacona is probably the leading figure today.
[00:03:51] He really is a friend and one of the nicest people on the planet. Sincere, interesting, good sense of humor, kind, loving and well meaning. But some of his historical views are so clearly driven by apologetic concerns that I'm regularly amazed he doesn't see it. If he does see it, I can understand why he wouldn't admit it. There's a lot at stake in being a public spokesperson for evangelical Christianity, but I don't think it's right for him to say he has drawn a historical conclusion when it has clearly been shaped by a theological view.
[00:04:27] Let me illustrate the problem with two sets of parallel claims Mike publicly makes.
[00:04:34] Set 1 Historical Events Mike openly states that miracles, at least those in the Christian tradition, can be and can be shown to be historical events. They really happened, and the fact that they are miracles, events that violate the known laws of physics, has no decisive effect on the matter.
[00:04:56] If Paul and others claimed they saw Jesus alive after he was crucified, and that claim trumps the laws of physics, he probably was raised from the dead. Paul saw him.
[00:05:08] But Mike also states that he has problems with an associated miracle. According to Matthew's Gospel, when Jesus was crucified, many bodies of the saints who had died were raised and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection. They started walking around Jerusalem and appeared to many Matthew 27:51, 53 Mike publicly talks of these zombies, and he says the event probably didn't actually happen. It's too weird. It has to be taken metaphorically.
[00:05:43] But why is one violation of natural law, Jesus resurrection, an actual historical event, and the other the resurrection of others? 2 weird be true?
[00:05:55] Of course, I don't know what's going on in his head, but surely it is relevant that Mike bases his faith, ministry, teaching, speaking engagements, apologetic presence, and most of his life on his belief that Jesus was raised from the dead. The zombie story, however, has no bearing on his faith, so he's fine to jettison that one, even though it is no more or less miraculous than the other.
[00:06:21] That is to say, his personal Religious beliefs have affected his historical conclusions.
[00:06:27] That's not serious history historians don't decide what happened in the past based on their personal beliefs, religious perspectives or aesthetic preferences.
[00:06:39] Set two Biblical studies Mike is firmly committed to the idea that the Gospels do not have errors in them, even if there appear to be contradictions. They are not erroneous because the authors were following standard operating procedures of ancient biographers such as Suetonius and Plutarch, altering stories they had heard for their own literary purposes, for example, leaving parts out to simplify them, changing them in light of their broader literary purposes, etc.
[00:07:11] So if an author is intentionally changing an account, it is not an error.
[00:07:17] On the one hand, that just seems inherently bizarre. If a friend of mine intentionally lies about what he did yesterday for reasons of his own, the fact that he knew he was giving false information does not mean it was accurate. It's erroneous if it's wrong, not if he meant for it to be wrong.
[00:07:36] On the other hand, and even more peculiar, Mike holds this view precisely while contending that the Gospels can be trusted by has reliable accounts of what Jesus said and did.
[00:07:47] Let me explain the problem with examples.
[00:07:51] Mike maintains that most of the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels are things he actually said. In Matthew, for example, Jesus tells his disciples that he has to go to Jerusalem to be rejected by the Jewish leaders and executed and then raised from the dead.
[00:08:09] For example Matthew 20, 17, 19.
[00:08:13] It's an important statement. Jesus knew full well that he would be crucified. It was the reason he came. You can trust he said it. In John's Gospel, Jesus calls himself a divine being. It's clearly stated. And he really did call himself God. That's about as important as it gets.
[00:08:32] But when in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus instructs his disciples not to take anything with them when they head out on their mission to preach that kingdom of God is at hand. He tells them not to take any money or extra clothes or a staff.
[00:08:48] He is explicit. Take no staff. Matthew 10:5 10.
[00:08:54] Mike maintains Jesus did not say that. He actually said the opposite. Take a staff.
[00:08:59] Why does Mike think that? Because that's how the saying is recorded in Mark 6 8, which he sees as more accurate here.
[00:09:08] But for Mike, Jesus opposite statement in Matthew is not an actual contradiction because Matthew wanted to change it to line up with his own view of the importance of relying completely on God.
[00:09:21] That necessarily means we can't know what Jesus actually said based on Matthew's version.
[00:09:27] It also means that Mike insists you can completely trust what the Gospels say about some things but not others, and how does he decide which is which?
[00:09:37] Again, I can't help but notice that Mike affirms as fully accurate sayings of Jesus that really matter for Christian faith.
[00:09:45] Other sayings that are of little relevance don't take a staff are not necessarily accurate.
[00:09:51] This is not a strictly historical analysis. Its conclusions are based on questions of faith.
[00:09:58] That is perfectly fine if you are a committed apologist defending the faith, but it is not fine if you are a serious historian critically examining written sources. You can certainly be both a committed evangelical Christian and a historical scholar. But if your apologetic views influence your historical claims, you are no longer a serious historian.
