Cross-posted here. I won't reproduce all the content of that relatively short post here. The main point is this: You may think it would be ethical for the Gospel authors to have written the 1st-century equivalent of bio-pics. But even if you think that, you should admit that such a conclusion would make a big difference to the amount of information we could gather from them. Therefore, you should take the time to find out if there is any good reason to think that they held themselves to have the kind of liberty that fictionalizing movie-makers have. Wouldn't it make them much better historical sources if they didn't? Of course it would. So dig in and examine the argument that the Gospels were like 1st-century bio-pics. If you do so fairly, you will find it wanting.
What if the Gospels Were Bio-Pics?
by Lydia McGrew
Comments (7)
You know, this is gaining such traction among skeptics I heard Richard Carrier mentioned something along these lines on the unbelievable show with Jonathon McLatchie (which I haven't listened to myself). Something along the lines of "Sure, Luke may have had sources. But how did he use them? How faithful was he?"
Posted by Callum | March 28, 2018 5:39 PM
I'd say that's a pretty standard higher-critical line. Indeed, these theories are just that to no small extent: Standard higher-critical fare with a "genre" gloss.
Posted by Lydia | March 28, 2018 6:54 PM
I can understand why atheists or non-Christians would not much care much whether it was "acceptable" for Luke or Mark to have been writing a semi-fictional bios. But for a Christian, if you are even asking the question "what can I rely on in the Gospels" and you have heard of the modern scholars' claims, the question is critical. DOES IT MATTER? Of course it matters. Then there is no two ways around it, you have to take the theory that they were writing bios and actually see if the evidence stacks up or not.
Posted by Tony | March 29, 2018 11:01 AM
What I'm discovering is that there is a lot of rather disturbing entanglement among problematic views in the apologetics/New Testament community. I'm *not* saying that everyone holds all of the problematic views as a big glop. But I *am* saying that different problematic views feed off of one another. So consider my post on "when minimal is minimizing." Unfortunately, one way that the minimal facts case for the resurrection has been taken is like this: Ah, good! We now know that we can give this extremely strong case for the resurrection of Jesus while not actually asserting that the gospels are reliable in any strong historical sense. And if we believe that the resurrection happened, we're Christians. So now let's go test the waters of higher critical shredding of the Bible, including the putatively historical Gospels. Because it *won't matter* if we conclude that they have a lot of ahistorical material, because we can *always fall back on* a "minimal facts" case and still affirm the resurrection. Phew!
I call this "calling the bluff of the minimal facts case." I think it has been *very* unfortunate. Scholars who are seriously saying, "Does it matter?" are doing so because they believe that things like minimal facts, the "criterion of multiple attestation," and so forth are going to come in on white horses and save them from any serious skeptical consequences. Hence, it doesn't matter. I have seriously known people to allege that it does not matter. Indeed, Mike Licona ended his recent debate with Bart Ehrman by saying that even if Ehrman were right about the Gospels we could be justified in believing in the resurrection. He added that Ehrman is not right anyway, though to my eye the difference between them on the reliability of the gospels was becoming rather difficult to see with unaided vision. But it was very interesting that that sort of "even if...it would be okay" statement was what he took his time for in his closing remarks. And in a debate, no less, on the subject, "Are the Gospels reliable?" I think it definitely showed the ways in which these different issues are connected.
Posted by Lydia | March 29, 2018 2:24 PM
This is a little OT but I submit that this isn't a bad thing so long as the context is the apologetic task of informally discussing spiritual matters with people. One of the benefits of this approach is that it allows apologists to briefly sketch an argument in defense of the most important claim of the Christian religion (i.e. that God raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead) without needing to also defend a major claim concerning the historical accuracy of the Gospel accounts. The case for the historicity of the Gospels (and the NT more generally) is the sort of thing that requires a book filled with tedious arguments that can't be easily summarized for people with short attention spans. That said, this is the sort of thing that needs to be vigorously defended by evangelical scholars in their public output; the so-called "minimal facts" case for the resurrection does not provide a license for evangelical scholars to stop defending the general historicity of the Bible from the likes of Ehrman.
Posted by Boreas | March 31, 2018 2:29 PM
I have an upcoming webinar on this very topic, one week from today, April 7, at Apologetics Academy. Beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. In it I address the allegation that one would have to fill a book with arguments in order to do anything other than a minimal facts case. I also address the Achilles Heel of the minimal facts case. Come along and listen. There will be live Q & A.
Depending on what you mean by general historicity (that is, just *how* general), someone who really thinks the minimal facts case *works* to give a strong argument for the resurrection, and who on the other hand thinks that the arguments of higher criticism *work* to cast into doubt the historicity of a great many specifics and even entire incidents in the Gospels, will not agree with you here. (Or if he says he does, he may just be defining "general historicity" way, way down--see below.) In other words, such a person may well believe that it does provide such a licence, because the "evangelical" scholar believes that he can can go on *himself* being a Christian (in at least some minimal sense) while *himself* granting (what he is increasingly coming actually to *believe*) that the Bible contains a great deal of material that might appear historical on its face but is actually invented, ahistorical, or for some other reason incorrect. Hence, such a person will be very glad to have a licence to stop defending the historicity of the Bible from the likes of Ehrman.
If you look at debates by both Licona and Craig Evans with Bart Ehrman on explicit topics like "Are the Gospels Historically Reliable?" or "Do the Gospels Provide An Historically Reliable Picture of Jesus?" what you will find is that the evangelical defender *supposedly* of the "yes" answer will defend *instead* the proposition that we can *garner historical material from* the Gospels, while not attempting to defend any more general sense of "reliability" for them. Ehrman simply skewers this. He points out repeatedly that what they are really talking about is mining historical information from documents that they are conceding to be *unreliable* and that our ability to mine some historical information from a document does not amount to showing the document to be reliable. Again and again and again the evangelical defenders will be confused on this point, redefining "reliable" to mean "I can find some defensible historical facts in here by using 'criteria of authenticity'." It's actually a rather serious problem.
Posted by Lydia | March 31, 2018 7:19 PM
And the "indisputable facts" that they claim to be able to mine are so limited that one is never going to get a firm historical basis for the Virgin Birth, the deity of Jesus, the Trinity, etc. from them, even though these are in fact parts of what is usually known as "mere Christianity." I just watched a debate between Evans and Ehrman in which Evans was making a big deal about the "indisputable facts" defended by liberal scholar Sanders. These included such anodyne statements as that Jesus was a Galilean who preached and healed, that he was crucified outside of Jerusalem, that he had controversies with the religious authorities, and his followers continued a new religious movement after his death.
Very limited.
Posted by Lydia | March 31, 2018 7:31 PM