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Michael J. Alter is the author of the copiously researched, 913-page volume,\u00a0The Resurrection: a Critical Inquiry<\/em><\/a> (2015). I initially offered\u00a0 59 \u201cbrief\u201d replies to as many alleged New Testament contradictions<\/a> (March 2021). We later engaged in amiable correspondence and decided to enter into a major ongoing dialogue about his book. He graciously (and impressively!) sent me a PDF file of it, free of charge, for my review.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mike describes himself as \u201cof the Jewish faith\u201d but is quick to point out that labels are often \u201cmisleading\u201d and \u201cdivisive\u201d (I agree to a large extent). He continues to be influenced by, for example, \u201cReformed, Conservative, Orthodox, and Chabad\u201d variants of Judaism and learns \u201cfrom those of other faiths, the secular, the non-theists, etc.\u201d Fair enough. I have a great many influences, too, am very ecumenical, and am a great admirer of Judaism, as I told Michael in a combox comment<\/a> on my blog.<\/p>\n He says his book \u201ccan be described as Jewish apologetics\u201d and one that provides reasons for \u201cwhy members of the Jewish community should\u00a0not\u00a0convert to Christianity.\u201d I will be writing many critiques of the book and we\u2019ll be engaging in ongoing discussion for likely a long time. I\u2019m quite excited about it and am most grateful for Mike\u2019s willingness to interact, minus any personal hostility.<\/p>\n To see all the other installments, search \u201cMichael J. Alter\u201d on either my Jews and Judaism<\/a> or Trinitarianism & Christology<\/a> web pages. That will take you to the subsection with the series.<\/p>\n I use RSV for all Bible verses that I cite. His words will be in blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Alter wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n CONTRADICTION #79<\/em> Matthew Contradicting Mark-Luke\u00a0When Judas Was Paid<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Matthew directly contradicts Mark (and also Luke) by reporting the time\u00a0when<\/em> Judas was paid by the chief priests. Mark narrates that Judas specifically\u00a0went to the chief priests to betray Jesus. When the Jewish leadership heard\u00a0from Judas, they were pleased and promised to give him an undisclosed\u00a0amount of money. Therefore, no money was received in advance<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n Mk 14:10 and Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went unto the\u00a0chief priests, to betray him unto them.<\/span><\/p>\n Mk 14:11 And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to\u00a0give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray him.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Similar to Mark, Luke\u2019s Judas did not<\/em> receive any money up front:<\/span><\/p>\n Lk 22:4 And he went his way, and communed with the chief\u00a0priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them.<\/span><\/p>\n Lk 22:5 And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In contradiction, Matthew reports that Judas received his money up front<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n Mt 26:14 Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto\u00a0the chief priests,<\/span><\/p>\n Mt 26:15 And said unto them, \u201cWhat will you give me, and I will\u00a0deliver him unto you?\u201d . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In conclusion, in Mark and Luke, Judas did not receive any money up\u00a0<\/em>front<\/em>; the chief priests only agreed to enter into an agreement and give him\u00a0money. In contradiction, Matthew\u2019s Judas was paid in advance<\/em>. Matthew\u00a0incontrovertibly and indisputably contradicted Mark and Luke.<\/span> (pp. 444-445)<\/span><\/p>\n Matthew 26:14-15<\/strong>\u00a0Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests\u00a0[15] and said, \u201cWhat will you give me if I deliver him to you?\u201d And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Matthew appears to be applying what is called in Hebrew literature \u201ctelescoping\u201d or \u201ccompression\u201d of time (a literary technique that I also wrote about at some length in<\/span> my reply #15<\/a>: including Matthew<\/em>\u2018s use of it in particular).\u00a0\u00a0In his book,<\/span>\u00a0Hebrew for Theologians: A Textbook for the Study of Biblical Hebrew in Relation to Hebrew Thinking<\/a><\/i>\u00a0(University Press of America, 1993) Jacques Doukhan notes that in the Hebrew mind, \u201cthe content of time prevails over chronology. Events which are distant in time can, if their content is similar, be regarded as simultaneous.\u201d (p. 206).<\/span><\/p>\n Matthew 28:2-4 is arguably another example of the same technique.<\/span> Former atheist Steve Diseb<\/a> elaborates on a further instance of this in Matthew:<\/span><\/p>\n The Cursing of the Fig Tree . . .\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Matthew 21:17-22; Mark 11:11-15, 19-25.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Matthew \u2014 Jesus curses the fig tree. The withering of the tree appears to happen immediately after the curing.<\/span><\/p>\n Mark \u2014 Jesus curses the fig tree, but the withering happens much later after Jesus and the disciples have moved on; they don\u2019t notice it until after the cleansing of the Temple.<\/span><\/p>\n As we have seen throughout the examples provided in this series, Matthew regularly shortens\u00a0his telling of the events. Matthew decided to tell the two parts of the story side-by-side, instead of separating the curing and withering of the fig tree with the cleansing of the Temple between them. As we have seen throughout this series, Matthew tends to group things according to thematic reasons.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Matthew\u2019s not the only one who does this. Sometimes Mark and Luke use the same literary technique as well:<\/span><\/p>\n Matthew mentions two demoniacs, while Mark and Luke only mention one.<\/strong>\u00a0This occurs throughout Matthew\u2019s gospel: two demoniacs (Mt. 8:28ff), two blind men (Mt. 9:27ff), and two more blind men (Mt. 20:30ff). In each case, Matthew has two, rather than one. This doesn\u2019t give us great difficulty, because Mark and Luke do not write that there was\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0one demoniac or blind man. Instead, they use a literary device called \u201ctelescoping,\u201d where they choose to focus on one figure, rather than two.<\/span> (\u201cIntroduction to Matthew\u201d<\/a>, James M. Rochford, Evidence Unseen<\/em>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is a right way and a wrong way to understand the use of compression in the New Testament. The Gospel writers do not \u201cmake things up out of whole cloth\u201d or deliberately take liberties with known facts for the sake of an agenda that trumps truthfulness and honesty (i.e., Alter\u2019s view of how they go about writing their accounts). Dr. Lydia McGrew, a friendly acquaintance of mine, makes several very important observations in this regard:<\/span><\/p>\n Two senses of \u201ccompression\u201d or \u201ctelescoping.\u201d<\/b>\u00a0These are phrases that you\u2019ll hear, terms that you\u2019ll hear. Now sometimes, what you\u2019ll hear is that an author like a Gospel author, will tell things in a briefer way: he\u2019ll leave things out. He\u2019ll just not mention everything, not mention every detail. An illustration I\u2019ve heard used is that it\u2019s like the \u201cguy version\u201d and the \u201cgirl version\u201d of a story, wherein women like to hear all the details whereas men just like to hit the bullet points, and so on.\u00a0That\u2019s<\/i>\u00a0fine for one sense of compression, that describes one sense of compression or telescoping. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n If you just leave stuff out, you\u2019re just being indefinite. You\u2019re not specifically\u00a0trying<\/i>\u00a0to give the impression that these things happened all in one day or all in a much shorter time, or that certain people didn\u2019t say certain things, or anything like that. You\u2019re not trying to make your reader read your document in such a fashion that it gives the impression that this took a shorter time. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n Next:\u00a0Two senses of \u201cnon-chronological order.\u201d<\/b>\u00a0This is very similar to the two senses of \u201ctelescoping\u201d or \u201ccompression.\u201d Now what you often will find \u2013 and I\u2019d say that ancient authors have somewhat more of a tendency to do this than we do, but we do it sometimes too \u2013 is just what I call\u00a0\u201cand-and chronology\u201d<\/b>\u00a0or\u00a0\u201cand-but chronology\u201d<\/b>: \u201cHe did this and this, but he did this, but this happened.\u201d OK. This is\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0implying a chronology. All right. This is\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0giving a specific chronology at all! This is just saying, \u201cThese things happened.\u201d They might not have happened in that precise way. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n That fact, that ancient people \u2013 and we sometimes, too \u2013 are inexplicit about our chronology, is\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0something that was discovered as a special compositional device used by the Greeks and Romans, or something, just last year. That\u2019s actually something that traditional harmonizers have been saying for many, many decades, and actually [for] hundreds of years. OK? Sometimes you get a non-chronological\u00a0narration<\/i>, but it\u2019s not actually giving a chronological order. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n Narrating in an order where you do not imply a chronology is incompatible with narrating in an order where you do imply a chronology, and you change the chronology from someone else\u2019s \u2013 maybe even changed it from what you had reason to believe was true. OK?<\/span><\/p>\n So one might [not] \u2013 and shouldn\u2019t \u2013 have any objection to narrating in an inexplicit fashion about chronology, narrating things in a topic-oriented order or something like that, without even mentioning a chronology \u2013 versus laying out a chronology \u2013 \u201cThis happened, then this happened, then this happened\u201d \u2013 when you know it\u2019s the wrong chronology! You know it\u2019s not how it happened!<\/span>\u00a0\u201cDr. Lydia McGrew on Six Bad Habits of New Testament Scholars (and how to avoid them)\u201d<\/a>, The Skeptical Zone<\/em>, 1-12-18)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the introductory section of this article (written by someone else), Dr. McGrew\u2019s concern (with which I totally agree) is described as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n In his book, Dr. [Michael] Licona defended the historicity of the Gospels but endorsed the view, common among New Testament scholars, that the authors of the Gospels would have considered it perfectly legitimate to deliberately alter historical details of events, relating non-factual claims as if they were factual, because back in those days, writers of biographies were more concerned with Truth than with mere facts. Dr. McGrew is a conservative Christian writer, but\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0a Biblical inerrantist. Nevertheless, she felt that by acknowledging the existence of what she terms \u201cfictionalizing compositional devices\u201d in the Gospels, Dr. Licona had conceded too much to skeptics such as Bart Ehrman (whom Licona\u00a0<\/span>debated<\/a>\u00a0on the reliability of the New Testament back in 2016), and that such a concession undermined his whole case for the historicity of the Resurrection.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Matthew was simply thinking \u201cnon-chronologically\u201d in 26:15 and applying a perspective that Jacques Doukhan noted (cited above): the Hebrew outlook, where \u201cthe content of time prevails over chronology.\u201d Per Dr. McGrew\u2019s analysis, Matthew isn\u2019t \u201cmessing\u201d with known chronology (like, e.g., John the Baptist being born before Jesus) in a way that is non-factual or fictional. He is simply (as she put it) \u201cNarrating in an order where you do not imply a chronology\u201d \u2014 with use of the \u201cright\u201d sort of compression. This is a crucial distinction.<\/span><\/p>\n Judas was paid for his betrayal. The Gospels agree on that. Matthew simply ignores the element of when<\/em> he was paid. It wasn\u2019t his concern. And that\u2019s okay. Chronology is not of the essence<\/em> of what is described. People like Alter and other biblical skeptics (and sadly too often, even conservative Christian scholars) superimpose onto his account the element of chronology and therefore (starting with that false premise) wrongly believe it contradicts Mark and Luke.<\/span><\/p>\n We observe for the millionth time, then, that the Gospel writers and ancient Hebrews were not primitive simpletons. The entire Bible is very rich in literary techniques and figures of speech. As I have noted before (but it bears repeating): Bible scholar E. W. Bullinger catalogued \u201cover 200 distinct figures [in the Bible], several of them with from 30 to 40 varieties.\u201d That is a\u00a0 statement from the Introduction to his 1104-page tome,\u00a0<\/span>Figures of Speech Used in the Bible<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(London: 1898).<\/span><\/p>\n But Alter\u2019s entire 913-page book, with its hundreds of references to and citations of scholars, and a claim to often present both sides of issues (<\/span>\u201cThe references include opinions and sources from a\u00a0wide range of perspectives\u201d<\/span>: p. xliv) never<\/em> takes note of either \u201ccompression\u201d or \u201ctelescoping\u201d (at least not by those<\/em> terms, if so). On the other hand \u2014 typical of a \u201cGreek hyper-rationalist\u201d approach rather than the very different, more holistic ancient Hebrew mindset \u2014 he mentions<\/span> \u201cchronology\u201d<\/span> 117 times and<\/span> \u201cchronological\u201d<\/span> 43 times: never realizing that chronology is often, if not usually a matter of indifference to the Gospel writers (who are far more interested in \u201cwhat\u201d happened rather than \u201cwhen\u201d it did). Alas, he has failed to do sufficient research, in his never-ending (shall we say?) \u201cfascination\u201d with the New Testament texts.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Photo credit:\u00a0<\/strong>Selva Rasalingam as Jesus in the The Gospel of Luke<\/em> (2016, Netflix USA)<\/span> <\/span>[Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/\u00a0Creative Commons<\/a>\u00a0CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication<\/a><\/span>]<\/p>\n Summary<\/em>: The question of \u201cwhen was Judas paid?\u201d & chronology was simply ignored as a non-issue by Matthew, who utilized the literary technique of compression; also known as \u201ctelescoping.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Tags<\/em>:\u00a0alleged Bible contradictions,\u00a0alleged Resurrection contradictions,\u00a0Bible \u201ccontradictions\u201d,\u00a0Bible \u201cdifficulties\u201d,\u00a0Bible Only,\u00a0biblical inspiration,\u00a0biblical prooftexts,\u00a0biblical skeptics,\u00a0biblical theology,\u00a0exegesis,\u00a0hermeneutics,\u00a0Holy Bible,\u00a0inerrancy,\u00a0infallibility,\u00a0Jewish anti-Christian polemics,\u00a0Jewish apologetics,\u00a0Jewish critique of Christianity,\u00a0Jewish-Christian discussion,\u00a0Michael J. Alter,\u00a0New Testament,\u00a0New Testament critics,\u00a0New Testament skepticism,\u00a0Resurrection \u201cContradictions\u201d,\u00a0Resurrection of Jesus,\u00a0The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry, when was Judas paid?, Judas\u2019 payment, thirty coins, Judas\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Michael J. Alter is the author of the copiously researched, 913-page volume,\u00a0The Resurrection: a Critical Inquiry (2015). I initially offered\u00a0 59 \u201cbrief\u201d replies to as many alleged New Testament contradictions (March 2021). We later engaged in amiable correspondence and decided to enter into a major ongoing dialogue about his book. He graciously (and impressively!) sent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":56098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[448,172],"tags":[4129,12966,525,524,514,2637,1879,1633,1878,1387,1386,535,4068,140,13451,13448,13445,13457,4019,13574,13454,282,13495,13498,13261,1347,13481,13577,13571],"class_list":["post-56486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jews-judaism-old-testament","category-trinitarianism-christology","tag-alleged-bible-contradictions","tag-alleged-resurrection-contradictions","tag-bible-contradictions","tag-bible-difficulties","tag-bible-only","tag-biblical-inspiration","tag-biblical-prooftexts","tag-biblical-skeptics","tag-biblical-theology","tag-exegesis","tag-hermeneutics","tag-holy-bible","tag-inerrancy","tag-infallibility","tag-jewish-anti-christian-polemics","tag-jewish-apologetics","tag-jewish-critique-of-christianity","tag-jewish-christian-discussion","tag-judas","tag-judas-payment","tag-michael-j-alter","tag-new-testament","tag-new-testament-critics","tag-new-testament-skepticism","tag-resurrection-contradictions","tag-resurrection-of-jesus","tag-the-resurrection-a-critical-inquiry","tag-thirty-coins","tag-when-was-judas-paid"],"yoast_head":"\n