Atheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce is the main writer on the blog, A Tippling Philosopher. His “About” page from his former site states: “Pearce is a philosopher, author, blogger, public speaker and teacher from Hampshire in the UK. He specialises in philosophy of religion, but likes to turn his hand to science, psychology, politics and anything involved in investigating reality.”
He has encouraged me to visit his site and offer critiques. Before he departed his former site at Patheos, he wrote under a post dated 12-14-21: “I even need to thank the naysayers. Some of them have put up with a lot of robust pushback and still they come. Bravery or stupidity – it’s a fine line. But they are committed, and there is something to be said for taking that commitment into the lion’s den. Dave, you are welcome at my new place. Come challenge me. All the best to you and thanks for your critiques of my pieces. Sorry I couldn’t get to more of them.”
Again, at his new site (under a post dated 1-27-22), after a vicious attack by a commenter, calling for me and indeed all Christians to be banned, Jonathan offered an honorable and principled refusal: “I do welcome disagreements because I don’t want [my blog] to [be] just an echo chamber. As long as it is good faith . . . someone like Armstrong does give me ammunition for some of my pieces! As long as they aren’t trollish.”
His words below will be in blue.
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This is a reply to his post, Christian apologetics and defending Matthew’s guards (1-31-22), which in turn is a response to my articles, Pearce’s Potshots #57: Matthew & the Tomb Guards (1-28-22) and Pearce’s Potshots #58: Paul & Jesus’ “Empty” Tomb (1-29-22). See Part 1 of this larger reply for background.
First, I don’t make this up out of thin air. The general ahistoricity of Matthew’s guards pericope is accepted by all skeptical scholars and a good deal of believing ones—see Brown above. Here is the famous Christian scholar Dale C. Allison:
…and [the theory that] Matthew, “with vindicatory intent,” backdated the guard to an earlier time. The most extensive treatment of the subject is Kankaanniemi, Guards. He argues that the Christian story developed as a response to the early Jewish fiction that the disciples stole the body while Roman soldiers guarded the tomb. Although he has not convinced me that the guards derive from Jewish polemic as opposed to Christian apologetic, we concur that Matthew’s story is not history.
Dale C. Allison (2021), The Resurrection of Jesus, New York: Bloomsbury, p. 180.
Allison continues later to make exactly the same point as me concerning the guards not becoming Christians and believing—is he pulling it out of thin air? Is his claim a rabbit out of the hat?
Whatever the rationalization, it is wildly unlikely that either would have declared, “Jesus is Lord!” Annas and Herod would have been like the fictional guards in Matthew 28, who see everything yet fail to lay down their weapons and take up the new faith.
Ibid. p.331.
This is a problem today: a lot of Christian scholars: even the more “conservative” / orthodox ones, accept false skeptical premises. My friend, Dr. Lydia McGrew, philosopher and amateur theologian (traditional Anglican) has written a book about this, called, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices (2020). Here is the Amazon blurb about it:
In recent years a number of evangelical scholars have claimed that the Gospel authors felt free to present events in one way even though they knew that the reality was different. Analytic philosopher Lydia McGrew brings her training in the evaluation of evidence to bear, investigates these theories about the evangelists’ literary standards in detail, and finds them wanting. At the same time she provides a nuanced, positive view of the Gospels that she dubs the reportage model. Clearing away misconceptions of this model, McGrew amasses objective evidence that the evangelists are honest, careful reporters who tell it like it is.
And here is the comment of a well-known Christian philosopher:
As Thomas Kuhn pointed out long ago, it is often someone from a different discipline who has the epistemic distance and objectivity to evaluate a widely accepted paradigm/methodology in another discipline, because practitioners in the latter tend to look at things the way they were trained and, thus, cannot see things accurately. Kuhn’s remarks are right on target when it comes to philosopher Lydia McGrew’s critique of widespread methodological practices in New Testament studies. While The Mirror or the Mask is very easy to read, it is also a massive piece of first-rate, rigorous scholarship that leaves no stone unturned. Replete with very careful distinctions, The Mirror or the Mask offers a precise analysis of the contemporary practice of employing “fictionalization” to exegete various Gospel texts. McGrew’s careful analysis finds such a practice wanting and dangerous and replaces this practice with an approach that treats the Gospels as honest historical reports based on eyewitness testimony. This book is a must read for all who are interested in the historical accuracy of our portraits of Jesus. I highly recommend it. (J.P. Moreland: Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology)
This is what is going on with Dr. Allison above. One would have to see why he thinks this way; what evidence he adduces other than conspiracy theories, bolstered by the fact that an increasing number of scholars now believe them. Does he have anything substantial? Jonathan doesn’t present it, if so. But the text of Matthew has in its favor the hostile Jewish witnesses of the early centuries after Christianity arose, who themselves talked about the stolen body theory. That’s actual concrete historical evidence; quite different from Jonathan’s relentless mythmaking and legend creation with no historical basis. Wikipedia (“Stolen body hypothesis”) noted this:
A Jewish anti-Christian work dating from the 5th-century, the Toledoth Yeshu, contains the claim that the disciples planned to steal Jesus’s body from his tomb. In this account, the body had already been moved, and when the disciples arrived at the empty tomb they came to the incorrect conclusion that he had risen from the dead. Later, the corpse was sold to the Jewish leaders for thirty pieces of silver, who confirmed Jesus’s death; Jesus’s corpse was then dragged through the streets of Jerusalem. Another variant comes from a record of a 2nd-century debate between a Christian and a Jew, Justin Martyr‘s Dialogue with Trypho: “his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven.”
This makes Matthew’s story more plausible. Jonathan thinks conspiratorially about the Gospels. I look at them, not just with the faith of a Christian (belief in their inspiration), but in light of independent verification of their veracity. I think the scientific and intellectual approach is more respectable than sitting around coming up with 153 different conspiratorial scenarios. And of course, now these include (among many atheists) the increasingly fashionable Jesus mythicism, which I have always considered intellectual suicide; hence, I refuse to interact with it at all.
Jonathan then enlists John Dominic Crossan in favor of his “Matthew & the guards” skepticism. Wikipedia says about him: “His work is controversial, portraying the Second Coming as a late corruption of Jesus’ message and saying that Jesus’ divinity is metaphorical.” So much for him. Why would any Christian be impressed by a scholar who blasphemes Jesus as a creature and not God? He has no credibility in our eyes. But you atheists love him because he spouts anti-Christian things that you agree with.
N.T. Wright is mentioned by Jonathan:
The other story which spills over in Matthew’s gospel from the crucifixion narrative to the Easter account involves the chief priests getting together with the Pharisees to go to Pilate and request a guard on Jesus’ tomb. This is of considerable interest, not so much for its own sake (though that is interesting too) but for the sake of what it tells us about the story-telling motives of the early church.
The tale begins on the sabbath itself…
NT Wright (2003), The Resurrection of the Son of God,
But Wright does not agree with Jonathan’s take. He is brought to the table for a particular polemical purpose, as I will discuss below. The book is partially accessible at its Google Books page. On page 637, Wright recounts Matthew’s story in 27:62-66 and concludes that “there is nothing intrinsically implausible” in the description of “the apparently easy collaboration of the Pharisees and chief priests, and of the two together with Pilate.” Then he opines regarding the Jewish polemical use of “that deceiver” in 27:63 (“that impostor” in RSV): “it seems more likely that it goes back to some kind of well-rooted memory.”
He then cites Matthew 28:11-15, which continues this motif, concluding with “this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.” Wright’s opinion of this portion is that “There is nothing improbable in this narrative; indeed, it makes good sense all round.” Frustratingly, page 638 isn’t available on this site, but page 639 is. Here he summarizes “the Bultmannian scheme” of the passages and he concludes:
If any historian finds this sequence more probable than the one Matthew offers, I can only admire their ability to believe such remarkable things. But I suspect that if even Rudolf Bultmann were to find himself as a member of a jury he would be more prepared to believe a story like the one Matthew tells than a story like the five- or six-stage development of tradition that must be told if we are to declare that Matthew’s is impossible.
Jonathan cites Wright from page 638:
But, while the historian is always cautious about accepting obviously apologetic tales, there are further considerations which make it very unlikely that this one was actually invented from scratch within the Christian community. . . . For our present purposes, the main thing is not to argue that the story, in both its parts, is historically true in all respects, though as we have seen it is unlikely to have been invented as a late legend.
Jonathan takes a potshot against me as an apologist by contrasting me with “actual apologists” like Wright, who is “well aware of the skeptical and non-Christian accusations” and “takes them seriously” and “acknowledges the counter-argument.” I suppose he could say that he did that in some sense, in describing Bultmann’s theory at length. But then he remarks that he thinks that Bultmann wouldn’t even believe his own story over Matthew’s if he were on a jury. And he says of folks who would believe his take: “I can only admire their ability to believe such remarkable things.” So if that is taking Bultmann “seriously” it is certainly only in the very mildest sense (by merely citing it). Once he gives his own opinion, he virtually belittles it (scarcely different from my take on liberal scholars of his ilk).
So once again the cynical and (his self-description) “purposeful passive-aggressive” attempt to pit me against the great Christian scholar N. T. Wright with regard to the Matthew guard story, fails miserably. Wright basically believes Matthew’s account (at worst thinking it might have been embellished a bit) because he is an orthodox Anglican believer who actually believes the Bible and not an extreme skeptic, like most of those Jonathan cites. Therefore, his conclusion is diametrically opposed to folks like Crossan and Fr. Brown. Their biases (for or against the Bible) are manifest.
Conveniently, after citing reams of Bishop Wright’s words, he stops precisely before the paragraph above where Wright talks about what Bultmann would do on a jury. Nice touch there, Johnny. I believe in getting a scholar’s whole opinion out there, as much as we are able, within space limitations. One more paragraph would not have put Jonathan out. It’s silly and objectionable to quote Wright’s description of Bultmann’s view but to omit his negative and rather dismissive opinion of it. But I’m delighted that Jonathan brought up Wright, because he has bolstered my opinion a lot.
It is hilarious because Armstrong accuses me of lacking any historical evidence for why Matthew alone claims this and then provides absolutely no evidence himself for his own historical belief!
This is untrue.
- I have already noted in my many recent discussions on this matter that authors (even ancient ones) are generally given the benefit of the doubt and not regarded as deceivers, minus any compelling historical evidence of same. I’ve used Herodotus as an example: the great Greek historian who also includes supernatural elements in his accounts: like the Bible writers do.
- I also call to the defense of the Bible, archaeology (particularly with Luke). If it’s shown to be accurate again and again, we can trust it in details where we have no explicit evidence (or any at all).
- I also noted above that the presence of a verifiable post-Christian Jewish conspiracy theory of the “stolen body” makes it more plausible for Matthew to describe a situation where that very thing is discussed, and that this is an example of actual historical evidence for a claim (whereas Jonathan has offered none of that). He cites a bunch of almost all radically skeptical academic muckety-mucks, but never describes or cites their rationale for why they believe in this conspiracy theory; that is, some hard historical substantiation and not just raw, bald assertion and mention of others with like mind (which approaches the ad populum fallacy in some respects).
Perhaps his most substantial argument is the claim that there are 135 instances when the Synoptic Gospels make claims that are not seen in any other Gospel. He claims that this makes it “no big deal.”
Except many of the ones he mentions are again arguments against historicity!
Judas’ suicide? It’s included in Acts and there is a clear contradiction between the accounts.
No there isn’t, as I wrote about last May.
The magi and Herod chasing Jesus and family out of the country to live in political asylum for two years before returning out of Egypt to fulfill a Messianic prophecy in Matthew is a super example. Only super-committed Christians have the cognitive dissonance reduction to believe this rather insignificant “fact” of Jesus’ life would be omitted from, say, Luke, who flatly contradicts the claim in having Jesus’ family go to the Temple in Jerusalem straight away before then returning straight away afterwards to Nazareth. This never happened! This is Matthew ex eventu prophesying!
Nonsense. I’ve dealt with this whole supposed “gotcha!” polemic too:
What Armstrong fails to do here is to explore how the guards were posted there and how the Gospel writer knew about them and their arrangement. I briefly discussed the issue in the last post. Matthew would have had to have been privy to a private meeting between the chief priests and Pilate.
No he wouldn’t. It’s altogether possible that he heard a report from Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea, who were Pharisees (Mt 27:62) and members of the Sanhedrin, sympathetic to Christianity. They could very well have been present at the meeting with Pilate with the “chief priests” also.
Of course, he doesn’t mention his sources, or how actual words from secret non-Christian conversations were accurately relayed across such time and space.
I just provided one perfectly plausible theory. It’s speculation, but it’s plausible and based on some facts we know from the Bible (which is historically trustworthy).
This kind of stuff is too problematic for Armstrong.
Hardly.
My original piece stands. Armstrong has provided nothing to even remotely change my opinion on that. He should opt for substance over rhetoric because latter just starts a rhetorical whirlpool to the depths.
I’m happy as always to let readers decide who has built up a more compelling argument or “case.”
I’m still waiting for the substance.
Read this and Part 1 as well.
Just insulting me is an uninteresting game that we can, indeed, both play.
Once again, I have not insulted Jonathan personally. I have uttered many strong words, however, against his many flimsy, lousy arguments about this, and his futile, irrelevant (yet dogmatically expressed) bald opinions that entail by their very nature, mythmaking and legend-building efforts.
It’s just that it is a waste of time, no one wants to see it, and I don’t really want to play it anymore.
Jonathan played it this time, having already charged me in this overall discussion with “being willfully disingenuous” and “being really dishonest.” I have not accused him of these things: neither now nor ever. So if he is concerned about insulting debate opponents, I suggest that he look in the mirror and the beam in his own eye and not the speck in mine.
Meanwhile, though he lectures me about my nonexistent attacks on his person, he continues all the while (inexplicably) being perfectly content to allow commenters in his combox to insult me up and down in sweeping, prejudicial, and bigoted ways (with the repeated utter lie-myth-whopper that I supposedly ban everyone who simply disagrees with me, front and center). That’s all fine and dandy. I haven’t done this at all with him, yet somehow he has this mistaken notion in his head that I have. Go figure. I think it is oversensitivity: something we all fall into at times, as frail human beings.
I guess he has me confused with so many of his atheist buddies who routinely savage and insult Christians and offer little or no rational engagement on the issues between us.
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Photo credit: Saint Paul Writing His Epistles (c. 1620), attributed to Valentin de Boulogne (1591-1632) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
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Summary: I critique atheist Jonathan MS Pearce’s relentless attack on the truthfulness of the Gospel texts & the honesty of the four Evangelists, i.e., fairy tale atheist eisegesis.
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