2018-02-21T16:49:34-05:00

I take it as given that the Founding Fathers thought it was fine for private citizens to have rifles for hunting and pistols as well (including in some cases for dueling). But there is some nuancing to what they thought about this matter that few if any guns advocates seem to have paid attention to. One of the big problems of gun advocates is they frequently take the Founding Fathers remarks out of context, which the following evidence will demonstrate. For instance, let’s start with George Washington.

“George Washington saw some limitations on the role of militias. As Edward Lengel, editor in chief, of the Papers of George Washington project at University of Virginia, said in this interview to Politico:

“Indeed, during the (Revolutionary) war he very frequently lamented the crimes carried out by armed civilians or undisciplined militia against their unarmed neighbors. The solution to these crimes, as he understood it, was to increase the power of the government and the army to prevent and punish them — not to put more guns in the hands of civilians.”

[My comment on this is Amen to that!]

“Washington also said that:

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.”

“Usually, only the first part of this quotation is used – “A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined”. It’s clear that Washington is again talking about citizen soldiers and the need for them to be disciplined and organized, with a plan and concern for safety. It’s doubtful he meant a climate where guns are freely available in 24-hour megastores.”

“Ben Franklin said this:

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

While it appears to mean something else, this often-invoked quote actually defends the power of a state legislature to impose tax in the interest of collective security. It’s not really about the gun issue at all, but very often appears on self-serving lists of quotes that are used by various activists. This illustrates the danger of reading too much into the words of admittedly great, but long-since-dead people to address the modern issues we, the living, face.

Thomas Jefferson wrote this into the 1776 draft of the Virginia Constitution, the first such document of a state declaring their independence:

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”

“That seems pretty cut and dry until you consider that the second and third drafts of the same document added “within his own lands or tenements” to the sentence. It seems Jefferson seriously considered that there should be some limitations on the individual’s right to gun ownership. It makes sense to own a gun for self-defense on your own property, but a different set of issues comes up when this gun is taken into public space.

“It is safe to say the Founding Fathers definitely saw a role for guns in fighting against or avoiding tyranny (based on their own example and the weaponry available in their day). They also were not the unequivocal, loud gun rights advocates that some would like them to have been. They were, as we’d like them to have been, wise.”

All of this post except the opening paragraph and my Amen in square brackets comes from a very fine article by Paul Ratner, which I am simply copying excerpts from here. You can find the full, carefully nuanced discussion at http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/what-americans-founding-fathers-thought-about-guns.

2018-01-04T09:46:18-05:00

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N.B. Ken Collins wrote some of the chapters in this book, Jerry Walls others. More specifically, Collins is responsible for chapters 2,3,6,7,9-12,15-19, and Walls is responsible for chapters 1,4,5,8,13,14, and 20. This post has Collins’ summaries, the next one, Walls’ summaries (BW3).
Roman But Not Catholic: Chapter Summaries
Kenneth J. Collins

Introduction

Drawing upon their own personal experience with the Roman Catholic Tradition, Collins and Walls reveal why this book is needed today in an ecumenical context that has become increasingly and annoyingly superficial. Difficult though remarkably pertinent questions have hitherto been avoided in order to achieve a climate of what has proved to be little more than a vapid workability, one that fails to accurately describe the actual state of Christianity, in its diversity of theological traditions, in the world today. Beyond this, Collins and Walls pay considerable attention to tone and to a proper spirit in this work and therefore reject an earlier Protestant polemic and apologetic that failed to appreciate Roman Catholics as our brothers and sisters in Christ.

2. Tradition and the Traditions

Impugning a misconception of the meaning of Sola Scriptura that is still being championed by Roman Catholic apologists today, this chapter demonstrates that orthodox Protestants affirm both the authority of Scripture and the considerable value of church tradition in the form of the rule of faith, ancient creeds and ecumenical church councils. Upholding the normative value and authority of Scripture, as the only unquestioned standard of faith and practice, Protestants do indeed make allowance for tradition properly understood even in terms of how Scripture is to be interpreted in the first place. However, once the canon was recognized by the ancient ecumenical church in the fourth century, the Body of Christ had a unique standard to judge the suitableness of all subsequent traditions, some of which were offered only by the Roman Catholic Church, itself, and which therefore clearly departed from Scripture now understood as revelation. That is, these all-too-human traditions, affirmed only be Rome, are evidenced in such doctrines as purgatory, the immaculate conception and the treasury of merits to name a few. All of these gave the Roman tradition a distinct and at times separating flavor, even from Eastern Orthodoxy.

3. Scripture: No Greater Authority?

Here the reality that Roman Catholics and Protestants read different Bibles is explored in a couple of key ways. First of all, these traditions literally read different Bibles in that Rome accepts much of the Old Testament apocrypha though these additional books were rejected as canonical by ancient and modern Jews and by Jerome when he translated the Scriptures to produce the Latin Vulgate in the fourth century. Second, Roman Catholics and Protestants interpret the Bible in remarkably different ways. Protestants, for example, stress the clarity, sufficiency and the normative power of Scripture as it is interpreted by the community of believers who make up the tradition, and not by some feigned “individual” that only has life on the pages of Roman Catholic apologetical literature. Roman Catholics, for their part, understand the interpretive process much differently from Protestants as revealed in the following material drawn from the Catechism: “It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others” (p. 41). This is a very bold claim in a number of ways. For one thing, it maintains that the proper interpretation of the Scriptures has been limited to the Roman Catholic tradition, apart from both Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism. This move is yet another example of how the Roman tradition alone, at least in her own estimation, is an unmatched authority: not only does its magisterium interpret the Bible for the entire church but not even Scripture can stand apart from this particular authority.

6. The Church, Part I: Excavating Rome’s Exclusive Ecclesial Claims

Roman Catholicism today contends, with considerable “wordplay” and equivocation surrounding the word “catholic,” that “Where there is Christ Jesus, there is the [Roman] Catholic Church” (p. 97). In this view, the Roman tradition alone is marked by a “complete confession of faith, full sacramental life, and ordained ministry in apostolic succession” (p. 97). However, this chapter maintains that the appeal to the notion of apostolic succession in order to sustain the distinct ecclesiastical claims of Rome is exceedingly problematic. In light of considerable historical evidence, it must be noted that the current claim that Rome’s bishops, distinguished from elders, are a part of a chain of succession that goes all the way back to the first century, to Peter in particular, is confused on so many levels and is therefore false. Indeed, such a claim is anachronistic in that it takes the later historical realities of the Roman tradition and reads them back into the past of the ancient ecumenical church where they simply do not belong. Beyond this, this chapter demonstrates that Rome’s appeal to apostolic succession is one of the ways that it continues to divide the church in general (maintaining that Protestants are “separated brethren,” for example) and the communion table in particular (Protestants are not welcomed).

7. The Church, Part II: Are Other Traditions Ecumenically Understood?

Given Rome’s distinct ecclesiology in which this particular tradition maintains that it is the center of the church in which the Body of Christ subsists, this chapter explores the implications of this teaching by raising two keys questions: First, is Roman Catholicism an ecumenical church? Second, this initial question can be properly answered by posing a second one that is very practical and down to earth by taking into account the burgeoning success of Pentecostalism in both Latin and South America: Is the transition from Lutheranism to Roman Catholicism, as for example by the late Richard John Neuhaus, the same as or the theological equivalent of that by a Brazilian, for instance, who was baptized as a Roman Catholic but who is now an evangelical Protestant? Readers will be surprised to learn that Rome does not view these two transitions or conversions as equal: indeed, the one leads to eternal life; the other leads to condemnation by the Roman magisterium in both the Catechism and Canon Law. This is not the judgment of a genuinely ecumenical church.

9. Sacraments: Baptismal Unity and Separated Suppers

Though Rome claims that baptism is the gateway to the remainder of the sacraments and that it constitutes the “foundation of communion among all Christians” (p. 147), both statements are belied by actual Roman Catholic practice in that Protestants (and even Eastern Orthodox) are barred from the communion table as a matter of course, though individual priests may, of course, act idiosyncratically. This exclusionary practice, in which Rome is functioning more as a sect than as a church, grows out of a troubled ecclesiology in which Rome, once again, ever sees itself as the center. In particular, the exclusion of Protestants from the Lord’s Table is based upon the mistaken notion of apostolic succession, through which Protestant orders are judged to be invalid, and upon the failure of Protestants, in the eyes of Rome at least, to affirm the fullness of the sacramental ministry in the Eucharist. In short, a table that should have been an emblem of unity has now become, through this vigorous ecclesiastical reworking of Rome, the very place of division.

10. Priesthood: From Presbyter to Priest, from Table to Altar

By the time of the late second century, presbyters were beginning to morph into priests who were distinguished from the remainder of Christians by special sacerdotal powers. This chapter, then, undertakes two key questions in light of this major development in the life of the church: “First, did changes in how the Lord’s Supper was viewed in the later church give rise to and actually create the Christian priestly role? Second, did modifications in terms of how the offices of presbyter and bishop were later configured result in viewing the Lord’s Supper in a remarkably new way? Answers to these questions reveal that the fellowship table of the first Lord’s Supper was transformed into an altar (while still also remaining a table) and the role of presbyter became one of a re-worked Levitical priest that helped to separate Roman Catholic priests (with indelible marks, special powers and the like) not only from Protestants (who in the eyes of Rome lack such powers) but even from Roman Catholic laity themselves.

11. The Papacy: Shaking the Foundations

Though Roman Catholic apologists like to claim, even today, that the Apostle Peter was the first pope, the historical record paints a much different picture. One of the problems in contending that the current Pope Francis, for example, is a part of a succession of Bishops of Rome that goes back to the Apostle of Peter of the first century is that a monarchical bishop, one distinguished from a presbyter (the kind that Rome needs for its claims) was not present in the city of Rome until that latter part of the second century according to the best scholarship available today. In fact, the marks or traits that make up the papacy, a particular constellation of claims, was actually not in place until about the fifth century at the earliest. Any claim then that maintains that there were popes in the first century commits the historical error of anachronism, that is, of reading back into earlier times realities that actually took centuries time to develop.

12. Machiavellian Machinations and More: The Later History of the Papacy

When it comes to the papacy Roman Catholics must learn to think in terms of centuries, to take a much larger view into consideration, so that this office will be properly understood and assessed. Indeed, the “recent images of smiling, happy, effective leaders, popes [like John Paul II and Pope Francis, for example] who have all the markings of magnificent and generous people, fill the minds of contemporary Roman Catholic laity, who therefore so readily assume, especially in terms of the papal office,” (p. 221) that it has always been so. Unfortunately, it has not. This chapter therefore displays what can best be described as “the dark side of the papacy” as it chronicles the lives of several wicked popes, Alexander VI in particular, an effort that in the end casts considerable doubt upon the notion that somehow or other the papacy is a divine office.

15. Mary: Why She Matters

The history of the church since the time of the Reformation demonstrates that it has become increasingly difficult for various Christian theological traditions to come to a balanced view on Mary. One is confronted, on the one hand, with Protestant neglect in the form of hardly mentioning Mary at all (though she does play a key role in the economy of salvation), or with Roman Catholic excess in which doctrines about Mary are promulgated that have no grounding in Scripture and which, unfortunately, detract in some sense from the unique role of Jesus Christ. In aiming at balance, then, this chapter considers Mary as Theotokos (the bearer of God) and celebrates this affirmation but quickly cautions that this doctrine is actually a Christological one in which Christ was and remains the focus of attention, not Mary. This proper balance was eventually lost in the Roman Catholic tradition and Mary, herself, became the star of a narrative she never intended or would even recognize. This chapter also considers the Marian doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary and the notion of a perfect sexless marriage.

16. Mary Again: From Dogmatic Definition to Co-Redeemer?

Beyond the two Marian doctrines explored in the preceding chapter (bearer of God and perpetual virginity), two others have emerged, without Scriptural support, due in large part to Rome’s own distinct understanding of tradition, namely, the Immaculate Conception and the bodily Assumption of Mary. When these two additional doctrines are considered in light of the two from the previous chapter, a genuine Mariology emerges in that these teachings seem to imply one another such that once they are in place they begin to take on a life of their own. Indeed, the four Marian doctrines, when considered together, have led others in the Roman Catholic church recently to call for a fifth teaching about Mary: that she is a Mediatrix, in a more modest sense, or even a Co-Redemptrix in a more unbalanced and unguarded one.

17. Justification Roman Style

Though some Protestants and Roman Catholics have come to believe that these two distinct theological traditions are in accord on the doctrine of justification by faith, there actually are many differences to be discerned in this area. Indeed, in its teaching of justification Rome continually (from the Council of Trent forward) confuses justification, a “reckoning as righteous” with sanctification, a “making righteous.” This major, not insignificant fault, is also reflected in Rome’s confusion of imputation with impartation, the forensic with the ontological, such that this particular theological tradition is unable to embrace fully, with all of its implications, a crucial teaching that no one less than the Apostle Paul celebrated, namely, that God justifies not the righteous or those who are holy but sinners, yes, sinners: “However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.” Romans 4:5 (NIV2011) Failing to develop the Augustinian teaching of operant grace, which moves in the direction of monergism, especially in terms of justification, Rome is left simply with co-operant grace which is unable to get the job done, so to speak.

18. Justification: The Joint Declaration and Its Aftermath

“With much fanfare…the Roman Catholic Church, more specifically its Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and the Lutheran World Federation signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in the historic city of Augsburg…on the October 31, 1999, anniversary of the Reformation” (p. 339). However, not everyone was celebrating. Indeed astute theologians both in Germany and in the United States realized that when the Joint Declaration was carefully examined it represented in many instances the Roman Catholic Church’s take on things even down to the ongoing confusion of justification and sanctification that was unfortunately acceded to by the Lutherans involved in this theological enterprise. In fact, the same missteps that were already noted in the previous chapter are all present here as well and the voice of Trent, interestingly enough, has been preserved even here. Moreover, after the promulgation of the Joint Declaration, and after the issuing of Dominus Jesus: On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church in 2000 by Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, the German Protestant church quickly realized that the old Roman ecclesiology still remained, even after the Joint Declaration. What’s more an American theologian pointed out that the ecclesiology present in Dominus Jesus actually undermines not only a proper understanding of the church but also the doctrine of justification as presented in the Joint Declaration itself.

19. Regeneration, Assurance, and Conversion: A Minor Chord in Roman Catholic
Theology?

The sacramental configuration of redemption by the Roman Catholic church is clearly evident in the areas of new birth and assurance which are some of the major doctrines that make up what many in the church have called conversion. Remarkably enough, there is no separate section in the Catechism on the new birth since it is subsumed under the sacrament of baptism. Even the doctrine of assurance is only considered against the backdrop of Roman Catholic ecclesiology in which it emerges not as the personal doctrine that Paul had described in Romans 8:16, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children,” (NIV2011) but as a corporate one: “Can the church not have a corporate assurance in terms of the liturgical actions of its ordained ministers?” (p. 364). Given the challenge of Pentecostalism in Latin and South America with its championing of the necessity (on the authority of Jesus) of being born again, this chapter shows the Roman Catholic need for a robust doctrine of the new birth which not only has sacramental expressions but also will have its own place in the Catechism.

Conclusion: A Come to Jesus Moment

The title Roman but Not Catholic epitomizes three major themes that the book has developed. First, it highlights the exclusivity of the Roman Catholic Church in bringing forth many of its claims…. Second,…it underscores the separation created by the Roman Catholic Church precisely in making many of its exclusive claims….[and] third, the title Roman but Not Catholic emphasizes the authoritative basis upon which so many Roman Catholics, especially conservative ones, actually build their lives of belief, discipleship, and Christian service,” (pp. 401-402) which evidences not Sola Scriptura but in actuality, Sola Roma. After these three themes are considered, the book concludes with a trenchant scenario and with a pungent, disturbing question: “If both Roman Catholics and Protestants will be sitting at the table together at the great wedding supper of the Lamb of God, how then were their earlier divisions overcome in that place of glory and what does all of this say about their ongoing division today? That is truly a “deep” ecumenical question.

2017-12-15T08:51:27-05:00

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Here’s an excellent post by my friend and colleague Larry Hurtado on the so-called mythical Jesus which I am reposting ten days after he first posted. See what you think.

Why the “Mythical Jesus” Claim Has No Traction with Scholars
by Larry Hurtado

The overwhelming body of scholars, in New Testament, Christian Origins, Ancient History, Ancient Judaism, Roman-era Religion, Archaeology/History of Roman Judea, and a good many related fields as well, hold that there was a first-century Jewish man known as Jesus of Nazareth, that he engaged in an itinerant preaching/prophetic activity in Galilee, that he drew to himself a band of close followers, and that he was executed by the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.

These same scholars typically recognize also that very quickly after Jesus’ execution there arose among Jesus’ followers the strong conviction that God (the Jewish deity) had raised Jesus from death (based on claims that some of them had seen the risen Jesus). These followers also claimed that God had exalted Jesus to heavenly glory as the validated Messiah, the unique “Son of God,” and “Lord” to whom all creation was now to give obeisance.[i] Whatever they make of these claims, scholars tend to grant that they were made, and were the basis for pretty much all else that followed in the origins of what became Christianity.

The “mythical Jesus” view doesn’t have any traction among the overwhelming number of scholars working in these fields, whether they be declared Christians, Jewish, atheists, or undeclared as to their personal stance. Advocates of the “mythical Jesus” may dismiss this statement, but it ought to count for something if, after some 250 years of critical investigation of the historical figure of Jesus and of Christian Origins, and the due consideration of “mythical Jesus” claims over the last century or more, this spectrum of scholars have judged them unpersuasive (to put it mildly).

The reasons are that advocates of the “mythical Jesus” have failed to demonstrate expertise in the relevant data, and sufficient acquaintance with the methods involved in the analysis of the relevant data, and have failed to show that the dominant scholarly view (that Jesus of Nazareth was a real first-century figure) is incompatible with the data or less secure than the “mythical Jesus” claim. This is true, even of Richard Carrier’s recent mammoth (700+ pages) book, advertised as the first “refereed” book advocating this view.[ii] Advertisements for his book refer to the “assumption” that Jesus lived, but among scholars it’s not an assumption—it’s the fairly settled judgement of scholars based on 250 years of hard work on that and related questions.

You don’t have to read the 700+ pages of Carrier’s book, however, to see if it’s persuasive. To cite an ancient saying, you don’t have to drink the whole of the ocean to judge that it’s salty. Let’s take Carrier’s own summary of his key claims as illustrative of the recent “mythical Jesus” view. I cite from one of his blog-postings in which he states concisely his claims:

“that Christianity may have been started by a revealed [i.e., “mythical”] Jesus rather than a historical Jesus is corroborated by at least three things: the sequence of evidence shows precisely that development (from celestial, revealed Jesus in the Epistles, to a historical ministry in the Gospels decades later), all similar savior cults from the period have the same backstory (a cosmic savior, later historicized), and the original Christian Jesus (in the Epistles of Paul) sounds exactly like the Jewish archangel Jesus, who certainly did not exist. So when it comes to a historical Jesus, maybe we no longer need that hypothesis.”[iii]

Carrier’s three claims actually illustrate his lack of expertise in the relevant field, and show why his “mythical Jesus” doesn’t get much traction among scholars. Let’s start with the third claim. There is no evidence whatsoever of a “Jewish archangel Jesus” in any of the second-temple Jewish evidence. We have references to archangels, to be sure, and with various names such as Michael, Raphael, Yahoel, and Ouriel. We have references to other heavenly beings too, such as the mysterious Melchizedek in the Qumran texts. Indeed, in second-temple Jewish texts and (later) rabbinic texts there is a whole galaxy of named angels and angel ranks.[iv] But, I repeat, there is no such being named “Jesus.” Instead, all second-temple instances of the name are for historical figures.[v] So, the supposed “background” figure for Carrier’s “mythical” Jesus is a chimaera, an illusion in Carrier’s mind based on a lack of first-hand familiarity with the ancient Jewish evidence.[vi]

Now let’s consider his second claim, that “all similar savior cults from the period” feature “a cosmic savior, later historicized.” All? That’s quite a claim! So, for example, Isis? She began as a local Egyptian deity and her cult grew in popularity and distribution across the Roman world in the first century or so AD, but she never came to be treated as a historical woman. How about her Egyptian consort Osiris? Again, a deity who remained . . . a deity, and didn’t get “historicized” as a man of a given date. Mithras? Ditto. Cybele? Ditto. Artemis? Ditto. We could go on, but it would get tedious to do so. Carrier’s cavalier claim is so blatantly fallacious as to astonish anyone acquainted with ancient Roman-era religion.[vii] There is in fact no instance known to me (or to other experts in Roman-era religion) in “all the savior cults of the period” of a deity that across time got transformed into a mortal figure of a specific time and place, such as is alleged happened in the case of Jesus.[viii]

OK, so two strikes already, and one claim yet to consider: a supposed shift from Jesus as “a celestial being” (with no earthly/human existence) in Paul’s letters to “a historical ministry in the Gospels decades later.” The claim reflects a curiously distorted (and simplistic) reading of both bodies of texts. Let’s first look at the NT Gospels.

It’s commonly accepted that the Gospel of John is the latest of them (with differences of scholarly opinion on the literary relationship of GJohn to the others), and that perhaps as much as a decade or more separates the earliest (usually thought to be GMark) from GJohn. So, on Carrier’s claim, we might expect a progressively greater “historicization” of Jesus, and less emphasis on him as “a celestial being,” in GJohn. Which is precisely not the case—actually, the opposite. Most readers of GJohn readily note that, in comparison with the “Synoptic” Gospels, the text makes much more explicit and emphatic Jesus’ heavenly origins, his share in divine glory, etc., right from the opening chapter onward with its reference to the “Logos” as agent of creation and who “became flesh” and “dwelt among us” (1:1-5, 14).

In contrast, GMark simply narrates an account of Jesus’ itinerant ministry of teaching, performing exorcisms and healings, conflicts with critics, and then a lengthy account of his fateful final trip to Jerusalem. There are allusions or hints in GMark that Jesus’ larger identity and significance surpass what the other characters in the account realize, as, e.g., in the cries of recognition by the various demoniacs. But Jesus has a mother, brothers and sisters (3:31-32; 6:3), is portrayed as known local boy in his hometown (6:1-6), and to all the other human characters in the narrative Jesus is variously a prophet, teacher, blasphemer, Messiah, or criminal. Most indicative that the Jesus of GMark is a genuine mortal is the account of his crucifixion, his death, and burial of his “corpse” (Mark’s clinically precise term, 15:45). Whatever his higher significance or transcendent identity, in GMark Jesus is at least quite evidently a real mortal man.[ix] Now, to be sure, GMark (as all the NT Gospels) presupposes that intended readers also regard Jesus as the exalted “Lord”. But the story the Gospels tell emphasizes his historic activity.

As far as the other “Synoptic” Gospels are concerned (GMatthew and GLuke), it’s commonly accepted that they took GMark as inspiration, pattern and key source, each of them, however, producing a distinctive “rendition” (to use a musical term) of the basic narrative. GMatthew, for example, emphasizes Jesus’ Jewishness, adds a birth narrative with lots of allusions/connections to OT texts, and gathers up traditions of Jesus’ teachings into five large discourse blocks. GLuke, writing, it appears, more for a Gentile readership and with more of a nod to generic features of Greek history and biography of the time, inserts dates (3:1-2), and has his own birth narrative and genealogy that links Jesus more to world history.

But the overall point here is that across the years in which the Gospels were composed, there isn’t a trajectory from a “celestial being” with no earthly existence to a “historicized” man. If anything, the emphasis goes in the opposite direction.[x] Certainly, it appears to most scholars that the Gospels reflect the growth of legendary material about Jesus, the birth narratives being a prime example. But legendary embellishment is what happens to high-impact historical figures, and doesn’t signal that the figures are “mythical”.

One further point about the Gospels. Yes, a few decades separate them from the time of Jesus’ execution under Pontius Pilate and from the commonly accepted dates of Paul’s undisputed letters. The NT Gospels, with their bios-shaped narratives do mark a noteworthy development in the history of earliest Christian literature.[xi] But it’s dubious to posit that they mark some major departure theologically from earlier Christian beliefs about Jesus.[xii] Instead, they echo and develop the crucifixion-resurrection focus that we see in our earliest texts, drawing upon the emergent biographical genre to produce a noteworthy “literaturization” of the gospel message.

And some 250 years of critical study of the Gospels has continued to show that they draw upon various earlier sources, both written and oral that had been circulating for decades, including collections of sayings and disputations of Jesus, likely also a body of miracle stories, and narratives of Jesus’ crucifixion. Indeed, the Gospels (especially their variations in their respective accounts) reflect multiple and varied stories and traditions about Jesus that were taught and transmitted across the decades between Jesus’ execution and the composition of these texts. Which means that treating Jesus as the Messiah and exalted Lord whose teachings and earthly actions were significant did not begin with the Gospel writers, but has its roots deeply back into the earlier decades. The earmarks of the traditions on which the Gospel writers drew are there and have been readily perceived by scholars for a long time, whatever differences there are among scholars about precisely the form and extent of these traditions. Treating Jesus as a historical figure didn’t commence late or with the authors of the Gospels.

But, in a sense, the “mythical Jesus” focus on the Gospels is a bit of a red-herring. For the far earlier references to an earthly/mortal Jesus are in the earliest Christian texts extant: the several letters that are commonly undisputed as composed by the Apostle Paul.[xiii] These take us back much earlier, typically dated sometime between the late 40s and the early 60s of the first century. So Carrier’s final claim to consider is whether Paul’s letters reflect a view of Jesus as simply an angelic, “celestial” being with no real historical existence.

Unquestionably, Paul affirms and reflects a “high” view of Jesus, as the true Messiah, the unique Son of God, and the exalted Lord to whom now God requires obeisance by all creation.[xiv] After his initially vigorous opposition to the young Jesus-movement, he had an experience that he regarded a divine revelation, which confirmed to him Jesus’ exalted status and validity as God’s unique “Son” (Galatians 1:14-16), after which he became a trans-national exponent of the claims about Jesus. Corresponding to this, and still more remarkable in light of Paul’s firm Jewish heritage and continuing self-identity, his letters reflect a developed devotional pattern in which the resurrected and exalted Jesus features programmatically along with God as recipient and focus.[xv]

But for Paul and those previous Jesus-followers whom he had initially opposed prior to the “revelation” that turned him in a new direction, Jesus was initially a Jewish male contemporary. It was what they took to be God’s resurrection and exaltation of the crucified Jesus that generated their view of him as having a heavenly status. And, in keeping with ancient apocalyptic logic (final things = first things), God’s heavenly exaltation of him as Messiah and Lord generated the conviction that he had been “there” with God from creation, as “pre-existent”.[xvi] So, there are two major corrections to make to the claim espoused by Carrier.

First, Paul never refers to Jesus as an angel or archangel.[xvii] Indeed, a text such as Romans 8:38-39 seems to make a sharp distinction between angelic powers and the exalted Kyrios Jesus. Moreover, although Paul shares the early Christian notion that the historical figure, Jesus had a heavenly back-story or divine “pre-existence” (e.g., Philippians 2:6-8), this in no way worked against Paul’s view of Jesus as also a real, historical human being.

And, secondly, there is abundant confirmation that for Paul Jesus real historical existence was even crucial. Perhaps the most obvious text to cite is 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, where Paul recites a tradition handed to him and then handed by him to the Corinthians, that recounts Jesus’ death (v. 3), his burial (v. 4), and then also his resurrection and appearances to several named people and a host of unnamed people. Now, whatever one makes of the references to Jesus’ resurrection and post-resurrection appearances, it’s clear that a death and burial requires a mortal person. It would be simply special pleading to try to convert the reference to Jesus’ death and burial into some sort of event in the heavens or such.

Indeed, Paul repeatedly refers, not simply to Jesus’ death, but specifically to his crucifixion, which in Paul’s time was a particular form of execution conducted by Roman authorities against particular types of individuals found guilty of particular crimes. Crucifixion requires a historical figure, executed by historical authorities. Jesus’ historical death by crucifixion was crucial and central to Paul’s religious life and thought.[xviii] To cite one text from many, “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23).

Or consider Paul’s explicit reference to Jesus as “born of a woman, born under the Law” (Galatians 4:4). Paul here clearly declares Jesus to have been born, as mortals are, from a mother, and, further, born of a Jewish mother “under the Law.”[xix] Birth from a mother, and death and burial—surely the two clearest indicators of mortal existence! Moreover, Paul considered Jesus to be specifically of Davidic descent (Romans 1:3), and likewise knew that Jesus’ activities were directed to his own Jewish people (Romans 15:8).[xx]

Paul refers to Jesus’ physical brothers (1 Corinthians 9:5) and to Jesus’ brother James in particular (Galatians 1:19). Contrary to mythicist advocates, the expression “brothers of the Lord” is never used for Jesus-followers in general, but in each case rather clearly designates a specific subset of individuals identified by their family relationship to Jesus.[xxi] Note particularly that in Paul’s uses, the expression “brothers of the Lord” distinguishes these individuals from other apostles and leading figures. The mythicist claim about the expression is a rather desperate stratagem.

Paul knows of a body of teachings ascribed to Jesus, and uses them on several occasions, as in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, where he both invokes a specific teaching discouraging divorce, and also acknowledges that he has no saying of Jesus at other points and so has to give his own advice (e.g., 7:12). Rather clearly, the source of the sayings of Jesus was not some ready-to-hand revelation that could be generated, but instead a body of tradition that Paul had inherited. Certainly, Paul refers to his many visions and revelations (2 Corinthians 12:1), and even recounts one at length (vv. 2-10). But he also refers to a finite body of teachings of “the Lord” that derived from the earthly Jesus and were passed to him.

It would be tedious to prolong the matter. In Paul’s undisputed letters, written decades earlier than the Gospels we have clear evidence that the “Jesus” referred to is a historical figure who lived among fellow Jews in Roman Judea/Palestine, and was crucified by the Roman authority. There is no shift from a purely “celestial being” in Paul’s letters to a fictionalized historical figure in the Gospels. For both Paul and the Gospels, Jesus is both a historical figure and (now) the “celestial” figure exalted to God’s “right hand” in heaven. Whatever you make of him, the Jesus in all these texts is never less than a historical mortal (although in the light of the experiences of the risen Jesus he became much more).

We have examined each of Carrier’s three claims and found each of them readily falsified. It’s “three strikes you’re out” time. Game over.

There are much better reasons offered by people for finding Christian faith (or any kind of belief in God) too much of a stretch. The attempts to deny Jesus’ historical existence are, for anyone acquainted with the relevant evidence, blatantly silly. So, let those who want to argue for or against Christian faith do so on more serious grounds, and let those of us who do historical investigation of Jesus and Christian Origins practice our craft without having to deal with the strategems-masquerading-as-history represented by the mythical Jesus advocates.

[i] The validity of the claim that God resurrected Jesus and exalted him is beyond historical investigation to determine. But the early eruption of these claims is a historical datum not typically disputed.

[ii] Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We May Have Reason for Doubt (Sheffield Academic Press, 2014).

[iii] From a posting by Carrier: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2014/08/car388028.shtml#sdfootnote1sym.

[iv] See, e.g., Saul M. Olyan, A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism (TSAJ 36; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1993); and Michael Mach, Entwicklungsstadien des jüdischen Engelglaubens in vorrabinischer Zeit (TSAJ 34; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1992); Maxwell J. Davidson, Angels At Qumran: A Comparative Study of 1 Enoch 1-36, 72-108 and Sectarian Writings From Qumran (JSPSup 11; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992); L. W. Hurtado, “Monotheism, Principal Angels, and the Background of Christology,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 546-64; Paul J. Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchiresa (CBQMS 10; Washington: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981). Carrier refers to Philo, but Philo never mentions an archangel named “Jesus”. Philo makes a theological/conceptual distinction between the ineffable God and God revealed, and calls the latter God’s “Logos,” but he makes it clear that they don’t really comprise two separate beings.

[v] Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, Part 1: Palestine 300 BCE – 200 CE, TSAJ 91 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), gives a list of male and female Jewish names in second-temple evidence. Note also Margaret H. Williams, “Palestinian Jewish Personal Names in Acts,” in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting, Volume 4: The Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting, ed. Richard Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 79-113, who notes numerous instances of the name for figures referred to by Josephus, on ossuaries (sometimes the Aramaic form, Yeshua, sometimes the Greek form, Iesous). The name “Jesus” is an anglicized form of the Greek, Iesous, which in turn is a Graecized form of the Hebrew name, Yehoshua (“Joshua”), its Aramaic/shortened form, Yeshua. There are about ten individuals with the name in the Hebrew OT (usually translated “Joshua”), and others with the name “Jesus” in the Greek NT (Matt. 27:16; Col. 4:11; Luke 3:29). And note also the Jesus, the grandfather of the author of Ecclesiasticus (or the Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach).

[vi] For a survey of the various types of “chief agent” figures in second-temple Jewish tradition, including high angels, see my book, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (3rd ed.; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015; original edition, 1988). None of these figures, however, gives a full analogy for the programmatic place of Jesus in the devotional practices of earliest Christian circles.

[vii] See, e.g., Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome (2 vols; Cambridge University Press, 1998); Robert Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire, trans. Antonia Nevill (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). On the many “mystery cults,” see now Jan N. Bremmer, Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014).

[viii] Carrier seems to misconstrue the classic Euhemerist theory, which postulated that the various gods derive from ancient human heroes who across time developed into gods, not the opposite.

[ix] Among many studies of Mark’s presentation of Jesus, e.g., Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, Mark’s Jesus: Characterization as Narrative Christology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009).

[x] Perhaps the authors of the Gospels were concerned to re-assert the importance of the historical ministry of Jesus as indispensable. See Larry W. Hurtado, “Resurrection-Faith and the ‘Historical’ Jesus,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 11.1 (2013): 35-52; and my discussion of the Gospels as literary expressions of Jesus-devotion in my book, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 259-347.

[xi] E.g., Larry W. Hurtado, “Gospel (Genre),” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. J. B. Green, S McKnight and I. H. Marshall (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 276-82; David E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987); and more fully on the Gospels, R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, SNTSMS 70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

[xii] Larry W. Hurtado, “The Gospel of Mark: Evolutionary or Revolutionary Document?” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 40 (1990): 15-32.

[xiii] These are Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. The other Pauline letters in the NT are judged by most scholars to be either posthumously produced in Paul’s name (especially Ephesians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus), or are disputed as to authorship (especially Colossians and 2 Thessalonians).

[xiv] Matthew V. Novenson, Christ Among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), shows persuasively that in Paul’s usage “Christ” (Greek: Christos) retained the sense of “Messiah,” correcting an earlier scholarly view that the term had become an empty name for Jesus.

[xv] See my discussion of Pauline Christianity in my book, Lord Jesus Christ, 79-153; and my more concise treatment, L. W. Hurtado, “Paul’s Christology,” in The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul, ed. James D. G. Dunn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 185-98.

[xvi] Larry W. Hurtado, “Pre-Existence,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. G. F. Hawthorne and R. P. Martin (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), 743-46.

[xvii] Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums, no. 42 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), argued that early Christians appropriated “angelomorphic” language and motifs in articulating the heavenly status and glory of the risen Jesus, but, he emphasizes, this did not amount to treating Jesus as an angelic being. Cf. Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014), e.g., 250-51, who gives a confused representation of matters.

[xviii] The mythicist attempt to make Paul’s reference to Jesus’ crucifixion by “the rulers of this age” (1 Cor 2:7-8) into some kind of heavenly event is bizarre. All else in Paul’s letters confirms that he knew Jesus’ crucifixion as an earthly, historical event, and the “rulers” here are likely those under whose authority it was carried out. If, however, “the rulers” (archontes tou aiwnos toutou) designate spiritual beings, the statement would reflect the view (well attested in Jewish and early Christian sources) that spiritual forces are behind the earthly rulers, acting through them. But there is no basis for making the event something that took place solely in some spiritual realm apart from earthly history.

[xix] Contra Carrier’s ill-informed claim, the Greek verb ginomai is frequently used in various Christian and non-Christian texts to mean “born.” There is nothing in Paul’s statement to justify Carrier’s strange claim that it portrays something other than a normal birth. Any lexicon will confirm this: e.g., The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. Franco Montonari (Leiden: Brill, 2016), s.v. γινομαι.

[xx] As a devout believer in the one God, in Paul’s view, Jesus’ death was for redemptive purposes, and Paul could therefore also refer to God having sent Jesus for redemptive death, or having “handed him over” for redemptive death, as in Romans 3:21-26; 4:24-25.

[xxi] The term “brothers” (of fellow Christians) is a frequent intra-group designation in the NT, but “brothers of the Lord” is not. For a thorough study of this and other terms, see now Paul Trebilco, Self-Designations and Group Identity in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

2017-10-05T16:38:05-04:00

barth1

Q. We have recently learned, through the publication of some deeply personal letters (and their analysis in a recent issue of Theology Today) between Karl Barth and Charlotte von Kirschbaum that his relationship with her was not as previously advertised, and certainly not a purely ‘working’ relationship, but rather a menage a trois of sorts. Should this change the way we view his theology? Does this invalidate the integrity of his theological work? If it does change things, how does it change it, and why?

interview
1
MG
Mark Galli

Reply|
Today, 7:54 PM
You
Ben, let me try one more time. I’ve had a few days to process my thoughts about Barth and CvK, and I think I’d like to put the answer this way now. Last revision!! Please use this one and discard the others.

Mark

A. What was disturbing about the recent revelations was not the fact of the adulterous relationship–we already suspected that–but how Barth thought about it. It would seem to undermine of the points of the book–that Barth can help us evangelicals ground our theology in the revelation of Jesus Christ, and not in our emotions or our experience. It was that subjectivism (getting swept up in patriotism) that prompted liberal theologians to equate national euphoria with the will of God and support the German war effort in WWI. This move so rattled Barth, he felt compelled to rethink theology from the ground up.
Unfortunately, at a key juncture of his life, Barth himself falls into that very subjectivism, more or less saying that his relationship with Charlotte felt so good, so right, it had to come from God! And then, as a theologian will do, he justified the relationship with his dialectical method.

It’s not that Barth was just another sinner, or that he had an affair—that’s not the issue. We all do stupid things in life. It’s that he justified the affair on the very grounds that contradicted his theological project as well as his theological method. That is disappointing but more importantly, instructive. It means, first, that while good theology can help one lead a godly life, it cannot ensure it. Second, it shows how human beings can take the good (in this case, good theology) and twist it to justify sin. Third, it demonstrates once again how God uses sinners of all sorts to help us better grasp who he is and what he has done for us in Christ.

This is not an attempt to justify Barth’s adultery–by no means. It just shows again God using people in spite of themselves, and using even moral catastrophes to help the gospel to shine forth. It reminds one of Bernard of Clairvaux, who preached the second Crusade, and yet also wrote one of the most beautiful treatises on the love of God. Other examples abound in church history.

As I say in the book, subjectivity—experience of Christ, of salvation—is part and parcel of what it means to be evangelical, for good and for ill. I want evangelicals to entertain Barth’s theology as one way to put a check on excessive subjectivity. This episode is a good reminder that a theology like Barth’s, while it can certainly help us–by turning our gaze from ourselves to Christ–isn’t a magic cure. The excessive interest in the self also comes out only with prayer and fasting!

—— Mark Galli

2017-07-06T16:21:11-04:00

connconn1

Connemara marble is world famous. It is quarried just outside the city, in a quarry owned by the owners of the marble shop we visited.
conn2
conn13conn14
We got a full demonstration as to how marble is turned into beautiful things.
Here’s the owner doing the demonstration of how the stone is milled and drilled and polished. The owner’s name is Ambrose Joyce, presumably no relation to James.conn15
conn4conn5conn6Marble comes in many different sizes, shapes, and colors and sometimes is even multi-colored. conn8 Some marble has ancient fossils in it. My wife bought a broach with just such marble.
conn9 Here’s a shot of the quarry itself…
conn11 Here are some of the finished broaches.
conn12 I mentioned this stuff is world famous. How about making crosses for and blessed by a Pope—
conn16

If you’re not into something that marbleous, how about a genuine blackthorn, polished walking stick. conn17

Either way, you can’t go wrong with a trip to Connemara. It’s fascinating.

2017-07-06T14:11:27-04:00

trio

In county Donegal one can still find the traditional old process of weaving on a loom. Most such products today (including Edinburgh Woolen Mill stuff in various cases) are not made where they were traditionally made, and are not hand made any more. Indeed, much of it is made in China! Not so the stuff from Triona. We went to a demonstration of the traditional craft by master weaver Dennis Traherne. You will notice as well they have included the original Traherne cottage in the shop, to show you what life used to be like in Ireland. It is instructive.

First of all, a glimpse at the beautiful finished product— sweaters, scarves etc.
trio1trio2

One of the things that makes Triona special, is the ability to weave not just using black and white threads but to integrate in colored threads as well. Most weaver cannot do this elaborate sort of weaving. Here are some picture of Denny at work and explaining what he is doing, but first a lass will play us a jig on the fiddle!
trio4
trio5trio6jpgtrio7trio8trio9

And how did all this originalte, well let’s take a little visit inside the old cottage. trio10trio11trio12trio13

A little sermonizing is in order about Americans and their lust for cheap goods. We are killing off all the mom and pop, made by hand industries. You do indeed get what you pay for. If you want a handmade sweater, for example, then you must be prepared to pay a fair wage to the weaver, pay for the materials and pay to receive it if you don’t buy it at the shop. It takes something like 40 hours+ of work to put together a produce like the following: trio15 Never mind something like this—
trio16 For the latter, you should expect to pay several hundred dollars. I’m just saying.

2017-06-30T14:21:11-04:00

Ben-Index

In the most recent issue of the JBL Journal (vol. 136. no 2, pp. 381-303) Armin D. Baum offers us an article entitled “Content and Form: Authorship Attribution and Pseudonymity in Ancient Speeches, Letters, Lectures, and Translations–a Rejoinder to Bart Ehrman”. The article is in general agreement with Ehrman (as I am) that there was no such things as ‘harmless’ pseudepigraphy, that is a using of someone else’s name without an attempt to deceive some audience. There are exceptions to this rule, for example the use of the names of ancient patriarchs (see the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs), particularly in apocalyptic literature to provide commentary on more contemporary history. Richard Bauckham has written a good deal on this subject, beginning many years ago in his landmark 2 Peter commentary. Bart’s main point however is that the use of the name of a famous contemporary or near contemporary (within a generation or so) when composing a letter or biography or historical work, in order to add authority to the contents of the document, when in fact that person had nothing to do with it, is indeed an attempt to deceive. Baum’s article however shows that: “Everywhere an authorial attribution was regarded as correct and non-deceptive if either the wording or the content of a particular text could be traced back to the author whose name it carried” (p. 402). He then provides examples from letters, speeches, and other sorts of documents to prove his case. And he is right.

Since I’ve had earlier blog posts on Bart’s book, on this very blog, I will not retread that material here. What I would like to add is, as I have said in various books (see the one shown below) ancient concepts of authorship were not identical to our modern ones. A document could be attributed to someone if: 1) he or she actually wrote the document 2) he or she was the most famous source of some of the content in the document; 3) he or she did the collecting, editing, and promulgating of a document, such as in the case of the Fourth Gospel where someone named John put together the testimony of an earlier disciple of Jesus, namely the Beloved Disciple. It is anachronistic to impose our modern paranoia about copyright and authorship on ancient persons who actually were more flexible about these things than we are. Because 1)-3) can be demonstrated to be ancient practices explaining why a document is attributed to someone who did not actually take pen and papyrus in hand and write the document, I do not think it can be demonstrated that we have any pseudepigrapha in the NT. We certainly have some in the second century (e.g. the Gospel of Peter, or the Gospel of Thomas), but that is after the eyewitnesses were well and truly dead and they were not around to provide checks and balances, as for instance Galen did when people started falsely publishing things in his name in his own lifetime. Then too, there is the whole issue of the role of trusted scribes or amaneuenses. I would say that in the case of documents like the Pastoral Epistles, the voice is the voice of Paul, but the hands and style and vocabulary are those of Luke, his trusted companion. Different scribes were allowed different degrees of latitude in composition for their superiors, as is shown by a close study of what Cicero allowed Tiro to compose for him.

We owe Bart a considerable debt for showing that pseudepigrapha do indeed involve an attempt to deceive people about the source of some document. Innocent and pseudepigrapha are two words that don’t really belong together. For more on my take on all this, see either my Pastoral Epistle’s commentary in Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians Vol. 1 or more readily, the volume pictured below.

invit2

2017-05-01T13:33:26-04:00

Scan0017

Commenting on Rev. 11.8 Kingsley Barrett says this:

Sodom means sin. It has given its name to a particularly unpleasant perversion
of human functions. I was interested to see in Tuesday’s Times a paragraph noting the
publication of a new book demonstrating that “homosexuality, adultery, beastiality,
and fornication are all explicitly and consistently repudiated throughout the Bible.”
What a sign of our times that it should be necessary to write such a book! As if anyone
could be in any doubt that the Bible disapproves of sodomy! But I don’t think we
should misunderstand the allusions too narrowly. The place where Jesus was crucified
is the place where God’s creature, is perverted and twisted, and men’s and women’s
minds and bodies are put to uses for which they were never intended. Sodom means
the human perversion of God’s good creation. And we live in something not unlike
Sodom today.

2017-03-10T13:49:36-05:00

adama

On p. 113 Scot suggests that the authors of Gen. 1-11 were familiar, at least at the level of ideas, with some of the concepts found in other ANE creation and flood stories. In an age before there were many texts, and mostly oral traditions, one wonders how the authors of Genesis would have come across such traditions in the Holy Land. Might it not be better to suggest that various of these cultures knew of events in the past, for example a large regional flood that wiped away existing civilizations in the then know world, that they then all wrote about using their own ideologies and theologies.

As for the similarities in the creation stories in and outside the Bible, honestly there isn’t much to say, except on a few rather minor points. There are dramatic differences mainly: 1) apart from the Genesis account we are dealing with a polytheistic description of the origins of the universe; 2) creation takes place due to war in heaven, or at least a struggle in these other accounts; 3) while there is similarity in the assumption that some deity created human beings de novo (no evolution in any of these accounts) the purpose of creating humans in the non-Genesis accounts is so that the gods can stop working, and pass off their work load onto human beings. As the Atrahasis account says “let them carry the toil of the gods” (p. 116). 4) Biblical and non-Biblical accounts do speak of the humans being fruitful and multiplying, for the sake of the prosperity of the land, but note the reason why in the non-Genesis accounts So the gods can be served (with sacrifice etc.). Yahweh, however needs no such service, and the working of human beings is so they can fulfill the divine mandate of being co-creators and co-governors of the earth with God. 5) as God mentions in thesis 1 (p. 119), the Biblical God is not part of the cosmos, he is outside it, unlike the gods of the ANE, and it is created not from pre-existing parts (even parts of deities in some ANE accounts), but simply by God speaking.

My colleague Bill Arnold sums up things nicely— “In a word, ancient religion was polytheistic, mythological, and anthropomorphic, describing gods in human forms and functions while Genesis is monotheistic, scornful of mythology, and engages in anthropomorphism only as figures of speech.” (quoted on p. 119).

Just so, and this brings up an important point. The authors of Gen. 1-11 are not simply reflecting ANE culture in their account. They are not bound to such conventions and accounts, indeed if anything they are critiquing such accounts, and substituting a monotheistic one. This being the case, I don’t much see the point in saying that the Genesis account borrows in any significant way from these other accounts, or in saying it reflects the ancient science of such accounts. It really doesn’t. It has very different basic assumptions about God and about how creation happened and why it happened.

This certainly doesn’t make Gen. 1-11 a modern scientific account of things. It’s not an attempt at any kind of science, ancient or modern. It’s a poetic description of what God did long long ago. On the plus side, I agree with Scot’s take on the role of Wisdom as God’s agent of creation as seen in Proverbs and NT literature later, such as Col. 1.15-20. Gen. 1-2 however don’t really mention Wisdom personified, never mind Jesus as God’s Wisdom.

In regard to thesis 2, there is a tad perhaps of evidence for the use of the conflict motif found in the ANE accounts in Ps. 74.13-16, and in fact much more in Rev. 12, for example. Michael Heiser in his book The Unseen Realm (see review and dialogue last Fall on this blog) I think demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that it is one thing to say of pagan deities that they are not genuine gods, it’s another thing to say those beings that some people call gods don’t exist. The Biblical authors, including Isaiah, are misread if one thinks the latter is what they are saying. As Paul suggests in 1 Cor. 8-10, these other entities are not ‘nothing’ they are lesser beings he calls demons that can bother, bewitch, and bewilder God’s people, and so one must be wary of them.

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