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The prophecy dilemma for literary device theorists

Recently Esteemed Husband and our friend Tom Gilson did a webinar for Apologetics Academy. I watched some of the livestream on Youtube. During such livestreams there is always some chat going on "on the side" in the comments, and this time a skeptic commentator was throwing in various questions, many of them irrelevant to what Tim and Tom were actually saying. One of his comments was something to this effect: Since the Gospel authors believed that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, wouldn't this have motivated them to invent things that never happened in order to be able to say that prophecy was fulfilled?

Since he is an outright skeptic, presumably he would have no qualms about saying that a Gospel author who did that was simply lying and was motivated by the desire to serve a religious cause by deceiving his audience. Still, one might ask him in that case why the evangelists believed in Jesus themselves, and in particular in his fulfillment of prophecy, if they knew that they had to invent things in order to "make" him fulfill prophecy. The skeptic would, one guesses, at that point have to fall back upon some generic statement to the effect that people, especially religious people, don't always think rationally about these things and may simultaneously believe in their religion and also believe that they are morally justified in lying to further it. Bart Ehrman has said this in so many words about early Christians. To my mind it is an unconvincing answer, particularly about the evangelists who were writing the very first memoirs of Jesus and claimed to have known him. At the founding of a religious movement, the distinction between "charlatan" and "sucker who listens to charlatan" is more stark and obvious, even to not-always-rational human beings. And if the evangelists were charlatans, their motivation is extremely difficult to figure out, given the initially low status and persecution of Christianity and the fact that they could have avoided much trouble for themselves had they not accepted and promoted Christianity.

But matters are difficult in a different way for the Christian literary device theorists whose work I am critiquing in my forthcoming books, The Mirror or the Mask and The Eye of the Beholder.

For the Christian scholar who holds that John or other evangelists sometimes tweak the facts or even invent things in order to make theological points emphatically does not want to say that the evangelists were deceivers. These scholars lean heavily on the word "genre" to help them to thread this needle. As Craig A. Evans says to Bart Ehrman, speaking of John's Gospel, "I object to saying it’s not historically accurate. Well, if something isn’t exactly historical, how is it not historically accurate? It’d be like saying, 'You mean the parable, the parable was a fiction Jesus told? It’s not historically accurate?'"

In other words, John's Gospel, like a parable, is not rightly judged by standards of historical accuracy at all. As Evans said later in response to a question from the audience, "And so the Johannine sayings, the distinctive ones, with a few exceptions, they’re the ones that look like, as I said earlier, a different genre altogether, something that only incidentally has historical material in it, but otherwise is a completely different type of literature..."

But the whole point of "another genre" is that the original audience itself is not led into thinking that these things really happened. Jesus' original audience didn't believe that the Prodigal Son was a real person, for example.

So if "genre" is to function in the way that the literary device theorists want it to function, the original audience is supposedly not misled by the ahistorical narrative, because they take the whole thing with enough grains of salt that they don't take all of the events to be historical, even when woven seamlessly into the rest of the document.

But consider the dilemma this creates concerning prophecy. I could choose here almost any prophecy that Jesus is said to fulfill, since the literary device theorists' method would mean that (as in a movie only "based on true events") we can put a question mark over almost anything in the narrative. The fact that the legs of the thieves were broken but that Jesus' legs were not, for example. Why should we take that to have really happened if John was wont to modify his narrative and add things for theological reasons? And the event is only singly attested. It is found only in John's Gospel.

Here are two things that actually are questioned by Christian, evangelical scholars: 1) That Jesus literally said, "I thirst" from the cross is questioned by Daniel B. Wallace and by Michael Licona. In his unpublished paper on the subject, Wallace expressly relates his questioning of the historicity of this event to the fulfillment of prophecy, though the exact connection in Wallace's mind is extremely obscure. It is apparently related to Wallace's strange idea that John would not want to record either Jesus making a literal expression of thirst (though it appears that John has done exactly that!) or his cry of, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" as in the Synoptics. So Wallace claims that, when John says that Jesus said, "I thirst" to fulfill Scripture, it is Psalm 22:1 that is fulfilled (where the Psalmist says, "My God, why have you forsaken me?"), but that John has made this fulfillment somewhat difficult to see by making up substitute words--namely, Jesus' expression of thirst. (Wallace, "Ipsissima Vox and the Seven Words from the Cross," unpublished, pp. 7-8. For some exact quotations, see here.) 2) Both Michael Licona and Craig Keener suggest that Jesus did not literally breathe out on his disciples and say, "Receive the Holy Spirit" as recorded in John 20:22. Keener is somewhat more ambivalent and unclear as to whether there might have been some real "encounter with the Spirit" that lies behind this passage, but he certainly calls its historicity into question. Yet at the same time, Keener insists that this breathing must, in John's Gospel, provide "fulfillment of [Jesus'] Paraclete promises" that Jesus has made earlier that he will send the Spirit. (Keener, commentary on John, p. 1200). In other words, maybe the event didn't happen at all, but John put it into his Gospel to fulfill Jesus' prophecies that he would send the Holy Spirit!

So this issue of prophetic fulfillment is not just something I am making up. It is a real and acute difficulty for literary device theorists.

Let's apply some analytical clarity to the matter. The evangelists narrate many supposed fulfillments of prophecy. For any given alleged fulfillment, there are the following possibilities:

The evangelist expected his readers to believe that the event happened.

The evangelist did not expect his readers to believe that the event happened.

At this point I fully expect some pedantic readers to point out that maybe the author thought some of his readers might be confused but most would not, to point out that "readers" and "audience" are not monolithic terms, and so forth. But unless we have some concept or other of what the majority of the original audience would have understood, what a typical member would have understood, and what the author expected them to understand, then we cannot talk about genre at all. In other words, such generalizations are needed for everyone in the discussion, and indeed literary device theorists desperately need such generalizations, for they are the ones telling us all that "the original audience" wouldn't have minded such-and-such, or would have expected these sorts of changes, and so forth. So take it that when I ask what the author thought his audience would believe, I am using some such category as "the majority of his audience," "the audience for which he desired to write," "the typical members of his audience." This would be similar to what we would mean if we talked about a movie "based on true events." We would point out that people who go to such movies, steeped in our own culture, are "supposed to" understand that some things have been factually changed, even if they don't know what those things are. While there might be some outliers, such as children or people who have never stopped to consider what a "movie version" really is, there is supposed to be a general consensus in the audience, on which the movie-makers can rely, that the movie is not entirely factual.

Now let us further suppose, to set up the dilemma, that the evangelist himself did not believe that the event happened. Suppose, for example, that John did not really think that Jesus literally stood on earth before his disciples, breathed out, and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

Then, not believing it himself, he either did or did not expect his readers, seeing that he narrated it, to believe it.

Suppose that he did expect them to believe that it happened. In that case, John is a deceiver. He wants his readers to think that Jesus did something at that time that in fact he himself believes that Jesus did not do. According to Keener, the idea is supposed to be to narrate the fulfillment of Jesus' promises about the Holy Spirit. (This, by the way, is a highly implausible theory, since Jesus' promises about the Holy Spirit in John make it clear that he himself will not be physically present when he sends the Holy Spirit. So in terms of the theology taught in John's Gospel itself, this would not even appear to be a fulfillment. But set that aside for now.) If John wanted his audience to believe that this happened and that the promises were fulfilled in this way, then he is knowingly misleading them, and the literary device theorist who accepts this option can no longer express outrage when we say that, on his theory, the evangelists were liars. One wonders in that case why we should think of a deliberately lying Gospel as divinely inspired at all.

On the other hand, suppose that John, believing that the event didn't happen, did not expect his readers to believe it either. In that case, what's the point? In that case, nobody in the situation thinks that there was a real-life action of Jesus that looked like this that fulfilled the prophecy in question. Is the function of the narrative then supposed to be like that of some known-to-be-apocryphal story? Does it just cause us to reflect on how great it is that the Holy Spirit exists?

And why, we might ask, should we then independently believe that we ourselves are empowered by the Spirit? If the narrative in John is just a bit of pious fiction and would have been accepted as such (or at least suspected to be such) by its original audience, what then is our evidence for our own empowerment by the Spirit? After all, Jesus' own words, especially in John, are often called into question by the same scholars. Did Jesus ever clearly promise to send the Holy Spirit at all?

Or take another prophecy--the one about Jesus' bones not being broken. As already noted, if John tended to add things to his narrative for theological reasons, and if he modified his crucifixion narrative in particular (per Wallace) by adding words that Jesus never said, and if John's "genre" is such that we should not assume that the events it appears to narrate in all sobriety really occurred, how confident should we be that the thieves' legs were broken but that Jesus' legs were not?

Then, once again: If John believed that these parts of the narrative did not occur, did he expect his readers and hearers to believe that they did? If so, then he is a deceiver. If not, and if he was right, then for all his readers could tell those parts of the narrative do not really fulfill any prophecy. Prophecy is fulfilled only if an event really happens that fulfills prophecy. No event in history, no fulfillment. If neither John nor his readers believed that there was a real fulfillment as described in the narrative (the thieves' legs were broken, but Jesus' legs were not), then the narrative does not show that Jesus fulfilled prophecy.

But the apostles were constantly preaching that Jesus fulfilled prophecy. Jesus' fulfillment of prophecy was very important to their message to their fellow Jews. And there is every reason to take the evangelists (some of whom almost certainly were apostles themselves) to be at one with the apostles in their attitude on this matter. Real prophetic fulfillment was central to the founding of Christianity as it originated in Judaism. Why would we think that John and his original audience would think that there was any point whatsoever in the narration of a pseudo-fulfillment grounded in made-up facts?

This argument, of course, is the same argument that I have made in other posts under the heading "Fake Points Don't Make Points." Here I am putting it into the form of a dilemma in order to encourage us to think clearly about the issues involved.

As Julius Africanus (Christian historian, circa A.D. 160-240) said about the alleged attempt to use fake points for religious purposes in Jesus' genealogies,

Nor shall an assertion of this kind prevail in the Church of Christ against the exact truth, so as that a lie should be contrived for the praise and glory of Christ. For who does not know that most holy word of the apostle also, who, when he was preaching and proclaiming the resurrection of our Saviour, and confidently affirming the truth, said with great fear, If any say that Christ is not risen, and we assert and have believed this, and both hope for and preach that very thing, we are false witnesses of God, in alleging that He raised up Christ, whom He raised not up? And if he who glorifies God the Father is thus afraid lest he should seem a false witness in narrating a marvellous fact, how should not he be justly afraid, who tries to establish the truth by a false statement, preparing an untrue opinion? For if the generations are different, and trace down no genuine seed to Joseph, and if all has been stated only with the view of establishing the position of Him who was to be born—to confirm the truth, namely, that He who was to be would be king and priest, there being at the same time no proof given, but the dignity of the words being brought down to a feeble hymn,—it is evident that no praise accrues to God from that, since it is a falsehood, but rather judgment returns on him who asserts it, because he vaunts an unreality as though it were reality.

Comments (19)

Here are two things that actually are questioned by Christian, evangelical scholars: 1) That Jesus literally said, "I thirst" from the cross is questioned by Daniel B. Wallace and by Michael Licona. In his unpublished paper on the subject, Wallace expressly relates his questioning of the historicity of this event to the fulfillment of prophecy, though the exact connection in Wallace's mind is extremely obscure. It is apparently related to Wallace's strange idea that John would not want to record either Jesus making a literal expression of thirst (though it appears that John has done exactly that!) or his cry of, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" as in the Synoptics. So Wallace claims that, when John says that Jesus said, "I thirst" to fulfill Scripture, it is Psalm 22:1 that is fulfilled (where the Psalmist says, "My God, why have you forsaken me?"), but that John has made this fulfillment somewhat difficult to see by making up substitute words--namely, Jesus' expression of thirst. (Wallace, "Ipsissima Vox and the Seven Words from the Cross," unpublished, pp. 7-8. For some exact quotations, see here.)


That Wallace would allege or conjecture such a thing is really surprising to me. This is because his online NT Intro at

https://bible.org/series/new-testament-introductions-and-outlines

is really helpful and, so far as I have read, very solid on discussing authorship and authenticity claims. I realize it is not logically the same thing to say that (say) "John wrote the fourth gospel" when one really means "The fourth gospel is reliable in that the events it narrates really happened in the manner described". But having solid thinking regarding authorship/authenticity should be highly positively correlated with avoiding overly speculative positions.

Ehrman's position (taking what you wrote as the definition of his position) really strikes me as hand-wavy psychologizing. Sure, it might be true sometimes for people many times removed from the source events, but the first generation who were in a position to directly know or knew people who were in that position to directly know had really nothing earthly to gain by advancing a religion that promised them persecution, suffering, and a very difficult life. There were no Creflo Dollar types AFAIK claiming they needed a gold-plated chariot to traverse the Empire or anything.

(Skeptics strike me as conflating mere possibility with high probability at times...)

But having solid thinking regarding authorship/authenticity should be highly positively correlated with avoiding overly speculative positions.

Maybe as a statistical matter, but there are very notable exceptions, and it's important to be aware that the two have come apart *several times in recent history* among evangelicals.

Wallace is a notable exception here, and the example I gave in the o.p. is not the only one.

Another notable exception is Robert Gundry. Gundry argued strongly for Matthean authorship and yet *in the same commentary* went and jumped into the stratosphere with wild speculation about Matthew's making stuff up all over the place. To give just one example, Gundery seriously stated that the slaughter of the innocents was Matthew's fictional "midrash" riff on...wait for it...the sacrifice of the doves at the purification of Mary as narrated in Luke. Gundry's (very large) Matthew commentary is full of Tendenzkritik nonsense so ridiculous and so unargued that the most charitable thing to do with it is to draw a veil of silence over most of it.

Michael Licona is another example, at least as regards the Gospel of John. I have actually watched video in which Licona stands up to Bart Ehrman's attempted bullying concerning Johannine authorship by John the so of Zebedee. It's quite commendable and is one of the only times that I've actually seen Licona indicate that he doesn't mind the fact that he's taking a minority position in the world of scholarship!

Yet in his 2017 book Licona time and time and time again questions John's literal historical veracity and implies that John is much more prone than the Synoptics to alter history for theological purposes. Apparently despite being the son of Zebedee! Licona is not even fully consistent, here. For example, at one point he talks about the "sources" used by, inter alia, John concerning where Jesus first appeared to his disciples--whether it was in Galilee or in Jerusalem. It does not even seem to *occur* to him that his own putative position on authorship is relevant here. Why in the name of all that is wonderful would John the son of Zebedee use a *source* to tell him where and when he and the other disciples first met the resurrected Jesus in the flesh???

So it's very, very important to know that the same scholar may sit there solemnly one day and tell you all the good reasons for accepting traditional authorship and the very next day, without batting an eyelash or (apparently) changing his position on authorship, start advocating a bunch of highly speculative theories about factual invention and alteration without seeming to see the slightest tension between the two.

I suspect that it will become more common in the coming years, at least in the apologetics community, as younger apologists follow this same slightly schizophrenic model.

The thing that gets me most, I suppose, is the unutterably silly format of belief these scholars must imagine for people to come to the faith and adhere to it. In effect, either (a) John is saying to himself "I saw these miraculous things that convinced me, but I am going to make up a different picture of miracles that I hope others will believe are true to convince them of the truth of Christ, thus leading them to faith in Christ"; or (b) "I did not need miraculous events happening to persuade me to believe because the Holy Spirit poured grace into me unto faith in Christ, but I don't think the Holy Spirit will do the same to these others so I will make up stories that I hope they will believe and thus come to faith"; or (c) "I did not need miraculous events happening to persuade me to believe because the Holy Spirit poured grace into me unto faith in Christ, but I don't think the Holy Spirit will do the same to these others so I will make up stories that I am not hoping will fool anyone, thus leading them to come to faith even though such fictions did not lead me to faith."

None of these options is even remotely worthwhile as an hypothesis.

In addition to the above, the "theory" (if it can be called that) that suggests that early hearers "knew" that the stories were fictionalized, is that somehow they failed to convey that to their disciples in turn. This in spite of the fact that they were extraordinarily careful to hand on their own faith intact and pristine. How did they manage to fail so signally, and so universally? Somehow all these early Christians were adepts at seeing the (non-literal) truth BEHIND the stories, but their children and disciples lost the art, in one generation? It is beyond rational explanation. (Especially, in a Church guided by the Holy Spirit did the Spirit tire out after the apostolic age?)

I present Tony's comment just above in this thread as an example of the importance of Category 3 discourse, per the other thread! If we cannot *say* that certain views are not even remotely worthwhile as hypotheses, there is a very real danger that it will become difficult for us to *think* it and to *convey* it to others. Which would make it hard for us to see reality aright in cases where theories are not even remotely worthwhile.

One of his comments was something to this effect: Since the Gospel authors believed that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, wouldn't this have motivated them to invent things that never happened in order to be able to say that prophecy was fulfilled?
I recognize this question as the one I asked in the comments section.
During such livestreams there is always some chat going on "on the side" in the comments, and this time a skeptic commentator was throwing in various questions, many of them irrelevant to what Tim and Tom were actually saying.
1. I am hardly in any sense a "skeptic commentator".

1a. Regarding the historical reliability of the Gospels, I would be around 99 or so if Tim and Lydia were at 100 and Richard Carrier at 0.

1b. Regarding the plausibility of the 'literary device theory' of Licona c.s., I would be around 85 if Tim and Lydia were at 100 and Mike Licona at 0.

2. I cannot remember I was "throwing in various questions". In fact, the question about prophecies was the only one I asked. For the rest of the time, I was discussing the dating of the Gospels with a real skeptic.

3a. If I remember correctly, Tom Gilson and Tim answered a question before the webinar began. About that time, I too asked the above-mentioned question which had to do with the subject, although Tim and Tom were not discussing issues like this in the webinar; but I couldn't predict what they were going to say.

3b. As you may know, many questions in the 'discussion section' of the webinar are quite irrelevant to the content of the 'lecture section'. However, people just take their chance to ask the guest a question they have.

You even call me "an outright skeptic". Why do/did you think that?

Still, one might ask him in that case why the evangelists believed in Jesus themselves, and in particular in his fulfillment of prophecy, if they knew that they had to invent things in order to "make" him fulfill prophecy.
I understand, but now, you are adressing the most extreme version of the question. Your response is valid only if the evangelists were making up entire stories. However, suppose that there was some event in the life of Jesus that was similar enough to suggest that it was the fulfillment of a certain prophecy. For example, suppose Jesus entered Jerusalem on a camel. In that case, would it be strange that the animal was changed to a donkey in order to make it look even more like the prophecy in Zacharia? Still, you might respond that the evangelists knew in that case that this wasn't the way in which the prophecy was fulfilled, however:

1. It is possible that the changes in the stories were made gradually over time as the story developed.

2. It is possible that an evangelist thought he must have been mistaken about the kind of animal.

Likewise, it is possible to think that the evangelists did in fact invent stories because they thought that these stories really must have happened because a certain thing was prophesied about the Messiah.

Please note: I don't ask this question because I really think that the evangelists were unreliable people who invented stories or recorded oral traditions of very poor quality. I ask this question because this is something a skeptic might bring up and I am wondering what the best way is to respond.

For example, suppose Jesus entered Jerusalem on a camel. In that case, would it be strange that the animal was changed to a donkey in order to make it look even more like the prophecy in Zacharia?

Yes, extremely strange. And you anticipated the answer: Because if he didn't ride a donkey, then the prophecy was not fulfilled. You can't make a prophecy be fulfilled by making up a story.


Likewise, it is possible to think that the evangelists did in fact invent stories because they thought that these stories really must have happened because a certain thing was prophesied about the Messiah.

That is a theory without merit. A person who does that has little real regard for truth and is highly irrational. He makes up stories without historical warrant, knowing that he has no concrete evidence that they happened. The "must have happened" idea is a red herring. Prophecy does not tell us precisely what is going to happen in that way, and even if it did, to pretend that one has *independent* evidence that a prophecy was fulfilled is frankly lying. One has to know in that situation that people will take it that you actually know something about this independently of assuming that the person was one who was going to fulfill prophecy. That is not how honest people behave, and to try to pretend that it is not lying just because they "would have thought that this is how it must have been" merely darkens counsel. Nor is there any evidence that "ancient people" didn't understand these elementary points about making up stories and pretending that one has independent evidence that they occurred.


It is possible that the changes in the stories were made gradually over time as the story developed.

This is where we discuss the provenance of the Gospels and the fact that they do not show evidence of coming at the end of a "telephone game" and in fact show evidence to the contrary.


It is possible that an evangelist thought he must have been mistaken about the kind of animal.

The Gospels are highly circumstantial about the kind of animal Jesus rode. To change it would not be a small matter, as this comment implies. See above about dishonesty and making things up without warrant.

Jesus riding a camel is not "similar enough to suggest that it was a fulfillment" of coming to his people riding on a donkey. This is just a really poor hypothesis.

By "this is where we discuss" I don't really mean here and now, btw. After all, you portray yourself here as thinking the Gospels highly reliable. If so, then actually you presumably *know* the evidence that the Gospels are not coming at the end of a telephone game in which non-factual changes were made gradually by chit-chatting people who knew little or nothing about the events.

I'm also sorry, Willem, for having misunderstood where you were coming from, but I must say that I find your comments both in that thread and here to be quite puzzling if you actually are aware of the evidence to the contrary. Sheerly playing devil's advocate is exhausting for those pressed to answer what are really quite frivolous and ill-founded objections, and I don't think it is a good use of time for the person doing it, either.

I'm also sorry, Willem, for having misunderstood where you were coming from, but I must say that I find your comments both in that thread and here to be quite puzzling if you actually are aware of the evidence to the contrary. Sheerly playing devil's advocate is exhausting for those pressed to answer what are really quite frivolous and ill-founded objections, and I don't think it is a good use of time for the person doing it, either.
I am looking for the best way to answer the question I raised - not a question I made up myself, but one that has been used in discussions I have participated in. Of course, one could say: "there is evidence for the reliability of the Gospels; therefore, the story hasn't gradually developed." However, that is a very inconvenient way of rebutting, since you need to construe a very complex (cumulative case) argument. Therefore, I want to look for easier ways to rebut the question I asked, and your comments are helpful for that. But I will leave it at this.
Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject. George Horne Letters on Infidelity

That would be my comment on the fact that anyone can *say*, "Maybe these grew up gradually over time."

As far as, "Maybe they thought they could make up something because they wanted to say that Jesus fulfilled prophecy," see the main post and comments in the thread. We really need to recognize that if *really* fulfilling prophecy was important (as indeed the objection itself implies) then *made up* fulfillment would not fill the spot, since it *would not really fulfill prophecy. There is a fundamental confusion concerning the nature of human psychology on this matter. And no, it does not absolve the evangelists of the charge of being liars and charlatans to say that Jesus might have ridden a camel. It's not as though you can get "close enough" that the psychological difficulty and the charge of fraud somehow gradually disappears even when envisaging an author as inventing a fulfillment.

Lydia,

I agree that the question you pose is a legitimate one: did the evangelists expect their readers to believe that the event they recounted and presented as the fulfillment of a prophecy actually happened? If the answer is yes and if the evangelists simply made up the events they narrated in order to make a theological point, then they would indeed be deceivers.

But if one believes (as the majority of contemporary scholars do) that the Evangelists were not eyewitnesses to the events they described, then there is no need to suppose that they made up stuff. Stories - even stories of factual events - can accumulate accretions over the course of time. And stories, like genes, also mutate spontaneously. The evangelists may have heard one widely recounted version of an event in the life of Jesus, which contained an additional detail that appeared to be the fulfillment of a prophecy. Maybe they were the first to spot the connection, and they said to themselves, "Aha! No-one has remarked on the link to the prophecy before, which I've just noticed. That proves that people didn't just make it up to fit the prophecy. And the prophecy itself confirms that the additional detail which features in this version of the story must be true, after all." You might call that confirmation bias, if you like. But it's not deceit.

I think at least two of them probably were eyewitnesses. The others were in all probability very close to the events (had the opportunity to speak to witnesses). This is independently confirmed in a variety of ways. They thus had good reason to believe that the events had occurred. In any event, the dilemma in the o.p. is directed towards people who think that the evangelists did not even *believe that they had good reason to think* that the events took place as they related them and twisted or invented facts to "make" Jesus fulfill prophecy. The question of just how good their reason really was is to some degree (though not entirely) a separate issue. The two issues become partially intertwined only when someone envisages a situation where the evangelists had *manifestly* poor reason to believe that events occurred as related but allegedly had some "ancient-y" concept of truth that caused them to be careless about such matters. I think we have good evidence that they were not those sorts of writers.

But if one believes (as the majority of contemporary scholars do) that the Evangelists were not eyewitnesses to the events they described, then there is no need to suppose that they made up stuff. Stories - even stories of factual events - can accumulate accretions over the course of time. And stories, like genes, also mutate spontaneously.

We should always be clear about who it is that is the scholar, and what frame of reference he is using. If he is a Christian, some responses are available that would be not applicable to an agnostic. For, not only do we have "the stories" in written form, we also have the fact that they were accredited as inspired / protected from error by Christians from the earliest records about them. This could not have happened if they were accumulated via the so-called "communities" who crafted them in the manner of legends, as long as 100 years later. People can attribute a story as having deep significance and great literary value, without imagining that the story is inspired to be free from error. In order for the Gospels to have generated the reverence that the second-generation Christians gave them, they had to have come forth in a manner that makes it intelligible that the Christians would find them worthy of that reverence. Nothing about the "accretions over time" and the "spontaneous mutation" options provide a ground that leaves plausible room for people to revere them as inspired to be free from error.

Of course, a non-Christian will feel free to say that those early Christians were foolish for thinking the Gospels were so inspired. This approach will need different answers - such as the undesigned coincidences, and the highly interlocking fit of the 4 stories - what Tom hints at as as the broad swath of places where they can be harmonized readily. And the fact that the "accretions" and "mutations", even though occurring far from home, get the physical details of the region right. Stories that are subject to ongoing accretion and mutation for a century of (separated) community "telephone" don't harmonize like that.

Yeah, I cannot really describe how little impressed I am by that phrase "the majority of scholars" in such a context. And it's not only because of people being Christians or non-Christians. The field of NT studies is rife with terrible, terrible arguments. And these terrible arguments have become anti-standards. They have become false standards of the discipline. If you don't accept such moves you are considered an outsider and hence not knowledgeable in the discipline. It's a terribly dysfunctional discipline.

Dear Dr. McGrew,

Apologies for posting an irrelevant query but I did not know where else to address you with regards to this issue, but have you written anywhere on the 'failed prophet' interpretation of Jesus by critical scholars? Namely, quoting a skeptic: that "Jesus and a number of figures/authors in the New Testament unambiguously promised that the eschaton would take place within a generation — and the legitimacy of several important theological claims depended on this imminence. Yet this prediction failed in no uncertain terms, and can't be reinterpreted." From my understanding this is considered a settled issue among the majority of secular scholars and seems indeed deeply troubling from a Christian perspective. Any input by you on the issue would be highly appreciated.

unambiguously promised that the eschaton would take place within a generation

I really don't know what sort of "majority of secular scholars" would look like and what consensus their opinions might coalesce around, but this is hardly a slam-dunk. While Jesus' predictions of his followers being persecuted and even put to death were met somewhat in the 20 to 25 years after his death, there is no doubt that the prophecy was met one heck of a lot better AFTER that period. In addition, one can hardly argue that Revelation was fulfilled in the first generation after Jesus: of course, they may argue that Revelation is an after-the-fact addition to "the works of Jesus", such a judgment is per se not less biased than the opposite claim that it is all part of the intended story of revealed truth.

It's the "this generation shall not pass until all is fulfilled" verse that they are referring to. E.g. Matthew 24:34

Nicholas, I've addressed this a lot in e-mails. Give me your e-mail and I will forward you some of what I've written on it.

My e-mail address is lydiamcgrew at gmail dot com

Dear Dr. McGrew,

e-mail sent. Thank you very much.

Also, note that the 'problem' is not thought to be limited to the Oliviet Discourse (Matthew 24-25, Mark 13; Luke 21) but also , f.e. 2 Thss. 2, where the eschaton is envisioned to arrive while the temple was still standing, and the "soon" passages in Revelaton (Rev 1:1; 2:16; 3:11; 22:6-7,12,20; cf. 1:3) [Steve Hayes wrote a piece on those passages that I, unfortunately, do not find very persuasive: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/07/where-is-jesus-coming.html]

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