I've decided to add some further reflections on the topic of my last post.
It might be argued that a person of sufficient authority can teach something entirely new using fiction. If Jesus taught by way of a parable that the Gentiles are to be accepted into the people of God, while this would be a new teaching (hence, not recognized from our independent experience), we should accept it because of Jesus' teaching authority.
This is certainly true.
It's important to realize several things in that case:
1) If the truth in question is really new and does not resonate with our other knowledge, then it is the authority of the teacher that is doing all of the epistemic work. The fictional vehicle of his teaching does not add to the epistemic force of what is taught. It merely provides a memorable and vivid way of making the point. The fiction itself, then, is not teaching. Rather, the teacher is teaching, and he is using a made-up story for that purpose. We should believe what he teaches in direct proportion to the authority we are justified in giving his teaching, not in proportion to his skill as a story-teller. I argued in the previous post that fiction teaches by reminding. In other words, fiction by a "mere" fictional author teaches by causing us to meditate on and making vivid to us what we already know in another way. Here I add the qualification that fiction can be used by an authoritative teacher to teach without reminding--that is, to teach something new, just on his own credibility. But that is not a distinctive way in which fiction qua fiction teaches.
2) A good teacher (in both senses of the word) will not confuse his hearers about whether he is teaching using a fictional vehicle. Jesus never did. His parables are clearly marked out as such by their form, their non-specificity, and by introductory phrases such as "a certain man," and indeed the fact that the Gospels and his immediate audience explicitly identify them as parables makes it clear that there was no ambiguity in the original context about whether he was teaching using a fictional form or telling a literally true story. A teacher who presents fiction as if it is fact, blurring that line knowingly, undermines his own authority by calling into question his own moral compass.
To elaborate further: Sometimes one gets the odd feeling (I have mentioned this in comments threads before) that literary device theorists want to make use of a theory of apostolic authority that is extreme and warped by its extremeness. Such a theory would hold that we must simply believe that an evangelist has such enormous teaching authority that his words must be treated as equivalent in authority to the words of Jesus, even if the evangelist made them up and put them into Jesus' mouth. Such a theory would hold that the evangelist did not in any way undermine that authority by deliberately writing in a way that confusingly mingled fact and fiction. This approach is extremely hard to sustain when, as in the case of Craig Evans, one speaks freely of "the Johannine community." Why in the world should we give the authority to teach us to the "Johannine community"--neither Jesus himself or a specific Apostle? Still more, why should we give them so much authority that we accept their teaching even when they make up stories that never happened and relate them as if they did happen and even when they place words in Jesus' mouth that he never uttered in any recognizable fashion whatsoever? But even if a theorist asserted that a Gospel was written by an Apostle, such a theory of Apostolic authority is simply not sustainable. It does not even follow from the strongest Catholic theory of the teaching magisterium.
Moreover, there is a very serious self-refutation issue involved in an attempt to give such authority to the evangelists. For what is the excuse supposed to be? Why, verses like the words of Jesus about sending the Paraclete to teach them (John 14:26). Or perhaps Jesus' statements that he would build his church and the power of binding and loosing (Matt. 16:19). Or, if you are Craig Evans, a wild eisegesis of Matthew 13:52 about old treasures and new treasures.
But these verses are themselves supposedly records of Jesus' teachings. If the argument that the evangelists had the authority to teach by fiction-dressed-as-fact and to invent words of Jesus that he never said and place them into his mouth rests upon words placed into Jesus' mouth in the Gospels, how do we know that Jesus said those things in any recognizable form as recorded? Of course, it is highly questionable that those verses mean that the evangelists had such authority. The text does not appear to be saying that at all. And an additional way that we can see that they don't mean that is because, if they did, the argument would refute itself. It wouldn't go back to a justified premise that Jesus actually recognizably said these things and that therefore we should accept this authority of the evangelists. That premise would be undermined by the conclusion--that they were "licensed" to extrapolate and then to state these extrapolations realistically as if they were uttered by Jesus.
So, while it is true that a highly authoritative teacher can use recognizable fiction as a vehicle for teaching an entirely new truth, in no way does this support the literary device theorists' views. The Gospel authors taught by writing down historical facts that showed what they wanted to convince their readers of--that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, that he was the Savior of the world, and so forth. If they had done otherwise, commingling fact and fiction to the confusion of the reader, they would not in so doing have been teaching with the authority of Christ, who gave them no such commission.
As Julius Africanus says,
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 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 (8)
Julius Africanus clearly is not aware of form, redaction, reader-response, and other schools of criticism. He clearly needs re-education from a mainline seminary or divinity school.
Posted by Joe Lightfoot | November 15, 2018 6:45 PM
Interestingly, this particular teaching did already have significant preparation in the religious record before Christ taught: The story of Ruth shows a non-Israelite being (or becoming, if you prefer) righteous, and indeed becoming the ancestor of the great line of the Israelite kings from David on. But even earlier, Melchizedek, not descended from Abraham, is accorded the respect of a "priest of God" and as righteous, by Abraham himself. There are other examples as well, along with the basic fact that "the patriarchs" were considered righteous, even those who preceded Abraham (e.g. Adam, Noah, and particularly Enos). Nevertheless, your point is valid.
One suspects that it is all of a piece. By asserting such a stance about the authorship of John (a "community"), and as well asserting (without principle or proof) the use of fiction, these scholars effectively undermine any real sense of authority in the Gospel at all. They may not SAY as much, of course, but when you look at the downstream effects of their position, you see it all over: so-called "Christians" who believe anything at all in faith and morals, and claiming such nonsense to be "scriptural". Once you sever the definitive connection between the written record and the actual source of authoritative teaching, you cannot retain a real authoritative doctrine of any sort at all. Authority goes out the window, and you get whatever anyone wants. The scholars who don't recognize this as the effect of their playing with fictional devices are fooling themselves. The liberal scholars, at least, recognize and accept the result, they openly defy any authority in Scripture, though they (the savvy ones) still use arguments "from authority" on "conservative scholars" because the latter still feel bound to such notions. It's a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose ploy.
I remain astounded at the sheer perverse effrontery of the premise of these fictionalizers: they maintain that the authors of the Gospels came to faith in Christ in an astoundingly strong assurance, somehow, but that these same authors refused to relate to us the means through which they came to have such strong faith. Instead they chose to relate to us stories that THEY made up, which (necessarily) could only be man-made and thus failing of the divine power needed to bring faith.
Posted by Tony | November 19, 2018 1:01 PM
Yes, I think that some of this has arisen through what I call a "minimalist" approach to apologetics. For example: Instead of asserting that the disciples claimed that what is related in the accounts in the Gospels of the resurrection actually *happened to them*, and then asking the skeptic how he accounts for *that* testimony, the minimalist argues merely from the more minimal fact that the disciples *believed* that Jesus Christ was physically raised from the dead. In other words, never mind *why* they believed it. Let's not commit ourselves to saying that they believed it because they had experiences of talking with, eating with, and touching Jesus. Let's just argue from something we think the skeptic will grant--that they believed it.
An entire generation of apologists has "grown up" in apologetics urgently and earnestly trying to argue only from such watered-down premises. But these premises tell us nothing about why the disciples thought what they thought. Are we to think that they believed that Jesus was physically raised for some *other* reason but that the *actual* stories in the Gospels are invented, or what? Are we to grant that "for the sake of the argument" to the skeptic? And what would the ramifications be of such an epistemic concession? This they are taught not to ask, because they believe that they are arguing from a position of *strength* by boiling down the argument to a more stripped-down set of facts.
It's like thinking that a Yugo is a stronger car because it has so little to it.
Then along come the literary device theorists who say that perhaps *actually* at least some portions of the resurrection accounts *were* invented. Time was, that would have been subjected to the strictest scrutiny: What's your argument again? No, that's not a very good argument.
But when their audience has spent their entire lives as intellectual Christians telling themselves that they don't *need* this or that portion of the Gospels, they are then very vulnerable to this literary device approach, because, oh, well, it doesn't matter anyway.
The same thing is happening with regard to the assertions of deity by Jesus in John.
An entire generation of conservative evangelical scholars taught themselves and others to argue for the deity of Jesus *without* using John's Gospel, because "it is questioned by mainstream scholars," and (once again) they assume that the argument is *stronger* if it uses no portion of the New Testament that isn't acknowledged by mainstream scholars.
Then along come Craig Evans and Mike Licona and start questioning the recognizable historicity of several of the explicit statements of deity in John (by Jesus), and many people in the evangelical community don't bother to query this too deeply or get too exercised about it, because they have already been *practicing* for a decade or so getting used to getting along without the Gospel of John!
It's like a man who has been sitting in a wheelchair for a very long time. Eventually his legs atrophy.
Posted by Lydia | November 19, 2018 7:32 PM
Yes, and this is a logical, not just a sociological, truth.
Why did the early church care about the apostolic oversight of the Gospels? Because of the idea that apostolic oversight meant that they were historically accurate. If they weren't historically accurate, why should we care about them?
It astounds me to hear (he does it repeatedly) Mike Licona solemnly (and I'm sure sincerely) lecturing people that we cannot make a fuss about his views because we have to accept the Gospels "as God gave them to us."
It never seems to cross his mind that, if the Gospels are partially fictional, this raises a very serious question as to why we should believe that "God gave them to us." Why not just think of them as higher-quality apocryphal Gospels?
Historicity and canonicity are tightly bound up together in the case of the Gospels. There is no good reason for John to be in the canon at all if it is merely the reflections of the "Johannine community" on "who Jesus is to us." (Craig Evans's view.) Why should I treat *that* as the Word of God, inspired and given to me as authoritative?
But when Licona tells people emphatically that we just have to take "the Gospels God gave to us," meaning that "God gave to us" these partially invented biographies, he never even seems to realize how strongly he is sawing off the branch he is sitting on.
Posted by Lydia | November 19, 2018 7:37 PM
IMHO This is a stop-'em-dead sort of question.
I have asked this question myself over the years, and never have received any sort of compelling answer. (Maybe one exists, and my search has been by no means exhaustive.)
Accepting the gospels "as God gave them to us" is fine if one has reached the conclusion as to how "God gave them to us" by weighing all the evidence on how they were given to us. Based on your presentations of Licona/Evans, it seems that the conclusions were more a consequence of the starting assumptions (which you've strongly argued against) than they were data-driven. Morris has an essay about eyewitness testimony in John (again in his Studies volume on the fourth gospel) that strikes me as quite fair and balanced, btw.
Sociologically, it is very interesting to me just how willing are my supposed Evangelical compatriots in the academy to behave like liberals, and (seemingly) be quite pleased to apply stronger and stronger acid to claims of historicity. With friends like these...
Eventually, I can see this carrying over to the Resurrection's historicity, where (just like liberals) Evangelicals who want to run with the cool kids will someday tell us that it doesn't really matter if it actually happened, but that we can still learn from it regardless. The acid used against purported historicity and purported eyewitness testimony can, if consistently used, eat away at the Resurrection too (again IMHO).
Apologies if I come off as too intellectually cranky from thinking about these topics. Sometimes I don't know if I'm reading purported Evangelicals or Bart Ehrman.
Posted by Joe Lightfoot | November 20, 2018 11:31 AM
I would say that Dale Allison is on the cusp of that kind of thing. He still (as far as I know) identifies himself as some kind of evangelical, but he will not affirm the *bodily* resurrection because he says he doesn't know what bodily resurrection means, or something like that. He accepts all sorts of liberal doubts about the provenance of the resurrection accounts, and he will go up against more bona fide evangelicals on this issue. There was a very interesting symposium in Philosophia Christi in which Bill Craig, Gary Habermas, and a few others responded to him. In general, I thought they did quite a decent job (though they certainly had to go beyond "minimal facts" to answer him!), but it really showed just how liberal Allison himself is. Allison believes in *some kind* of resurrection, but as far as I have been able to discern, it is a version of the "objective vision" theory. He also connects it to very realistic grief hallucinations (on which he accepts pretty much every account from anyone from the 19th-century onward of having experienced such a thing), so it seems that perhaps the idea is that the disciples experienced a God-sent hallucination of Jesus. And it's not clear to me *why* he believes even as much as he does believe--that anything objective whatsoever happened.
There is a very neo-Barthian passage in one of Allison's books in which he says something odd to the effect that when he is dying, he won't be concerned about whether "this part or that" of the New Testament is historical (no exception stated for the resurrection!) but rather only about whether he has "embodied faith, hope, and charity."
What was truly bizarre was this: In a debate with Bart Ehrman some months ago, Mike Licona stated that Dale Allison (!!!) *believes in the resurrection* and does so *because of the evidence*. Nothing could be further from the truth. It isn't clear that Allison even does believe in the resurrection, certainly not what orthodox Christians call the resurrection (that is, the bodily resurrection). And it's even less clear that he believes on the basis of the evidence. And then Licona quoted that "faith, hope, and charity" passage from Allison as though he thought it was deeply inspiring. What the point was, I have no idea. Seriously? This was a debate on whether the Gospels are reliable (that was the question of the debate), and you're quoting in your *closing statement* from a guy who says that on his deathbed he won't care much whether this or that part of the Gospels is historical???
So, I would say Allison is sort of a crossover person or bridge to that world in which we're told that it doesn't matter too much if the resurrection actually happened, and the person telling us is still labeled a Christian and maybe even an evangelical.
Posted by Lydia | November 20, 2018 6:56 PM
I guess part of the result of all this is that those of us who actually believe in the Gospels and in the Creed and in Christianity as it was taught for 2000 years need to stop already with accepting the nomenclature of modernity (like "conservative" and "evangelical") and go with the evidence: if a guy who at some point in the past ran with the name of "evangelical" spends huge amounts of his time and effort discounting the validity of the Gospels as eye-witness accounts, then we should just cross him off the list and move on. It really doesn't matter that much where on the slimy-gooey-slippery scale he lands on the details of this or that part of the Gospels, does it? I for one don't think it is worth the effort to 'redeem' bits and pieces of the work of someone like this, just so we can say he is not completely wrong. So what if he might happen to be right twice in a day, like a broken clock? As a guide to exegesis or to weighing the evidence, he is not someone to follow.
Posted by Tony | November 21, 2018 1:46 AM
Well put.
This shows how slippery and unhelpful labels can be.
If leftists succeed with their program and a day comes when, under penalty of financial loss, social ostracism, banishment, imprisonment, or even at the point of gun barrel I am told to recant/deny/etc, it will be a lot less difficult to hold firm if my faith is based on things that I think actually took place in the usual workaday sense of "took place". Not sure how courageous I would be if the dominical utterances weren't actually said in the context in which they are presented but are in reality mere reflections on some Jesus fellow by some vague "community".
Posted by Joe Lightfoot | November 21, 2018 8:45 PM