Part 5 (1/2)
The Canon: A Second-Century Composition.
With such remarkable declarations of the Church fathers, et al., as well as other cogent arguments, we possess some salient evidence that the gospels of Luke and John represent late second-century works. In fact, all of the canonical gospels seem to emerge at the same time-first receiving their names and number by Irenaeus around 180 ad/ce, and possibly based on one or more of the same texts as Luke, especially an ”Ur-Markus” that may have been related to Marcion's Gospel of the Lord. In addition to an ”Ur-Markus” upon which the canonical gospels may have been based has also been posited an ”Ur-Lukas,” which may likewise have ”Ur-Markus” at its basis.
The following may summarize the order of the gospels as they appear in the historical and literary record, beginning in the middle of the second century: 1. Ur-Markus (150) 2. Ur-Lukas (150+) 3. Luke (170) 4. Mark (175) 5. John (178) 6. Matthew (180) To reiterate, these late dates represent the time when these specific texts undoubtedly emerge onto the scene.2 If the canonical gospels as we have them existed anywhere previously, they were unknown, which makes it likely that they were not composed until that time or shortly before, based on earlier texts. Moreover, these dates correspond perfectly with Theophilus's bishopric of Antioch, which has been dated from about 168 to either 181 or 188 and during which the first definite indications of the canonical gospels begin to materialize. After this time, in fact, the floodgates open up, with Irenaeus's canon, followed by gospel commentaries of all manner by Irenaeus, Tertullian (c. 160-?; fl. 197), Origen, Eusebius, Chrysostom, Jerome and Augustine, et al. At least three Church fathers, as we have seen, pointed to Gnostic heretics of the second century as some of the ”many” in Luke's prologue, also verifying a late second-century date for the emergence of that gospel.
When one considers the amount of time, effort and resources put into New Testament studies and criticism over the centuries, it is understandable that the wagons would circle whenever someone comes along with suggestions seemingly out of the ordinary, such as a.s.serting late dates for the canonical gospels. One must ask, however, if there is no clear scientific evidence for the existence of these gospels before that time, would it not be more honest to entertain at least the possibility of their having been composed at a later date? One reason why considering this possibility is so important is precisely because there have been so much time, effort and resources put into NT studies. Some of the hardest nuts to crack exist largely because of the early dates attached to these texts, without valid scientific evidence. Without proper dates for these gospels, we will have little luck in establis.h.i.+ng who Jesus was.
Jesus Outside of the Bible.
”Apart from the New Testament writings and later writings dependent on these, our sources of information about the life and teaching of Jesus are scanty and problematic.”
F.F. Bruce, New Testament History (163) ”The only definite account of his life and teachings is contained in the four Gospels of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All other historical records of the time are silent about him. The brief mentions of Jesus in the writings of Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius have been generally regarded as not genuine and as Christian interpolations; in Jewish writings there is no report about Jesus that has historical value. Some scholars have even gone so far as to hold that the entire Jesus story is a myth...”
The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (v. 6, 83) The various problems with the numerous discrepancies and disputable dates of the canonical gospels suggest that these texts do not const.i.tute entirely helpful or reliable biographies of Jesus Christ. It would thus be useful to turn our attention elsewhere for additional clues as to who Jesus was. However, when we go looking for material outside of the New Testament that might validate the events described there, we come up empty-handed, both textually and archaeologically. In other words, there is no contemporaneous evidence outside of the New Testament to attest to Christ's advent and ministry-or even his existence. This silence is singularly astounding, in consideration of the repeated a.s.sertions in the gospels that Christ was famed far and wide, drawing great crowds because of his miraculous healings, causing a fracas with the local and imperial authorities, and, upon his death, creating astonis.h.i.+ng and awesome miracles and wonders the world had never seen before, including not only an earthquake and the darkening of the sun and moon, but also dead people rising from their graves and visiting people in town.1 One would think that if all these things happened, someone somewhere would have written about them or otherwise recorded them for posterity. But, inspecting the literary, historical and archaeological record of the time produces nothing. The dearth of evidence is not for want of suitable reporters, as during the first century the following historians and writers depicted life in and around the Mediterranean, including in some of the very places that Jesus and his disciples purportedly moved about: Aulus Perseus (60 ad) Columella (1st cent. ad) Dio Chrysostom (c. 40-c. 112 ad) Justus of Tiberius (c. 80 ad) Livy (59 bc-17 ad) Luca.n.u.s (fl. 63 ad) Lucius Florus (1st-2nd-cent. ad) Petronius (d. 66 ad) Phaedrus (c. 15 bc-c. 50 ad) Philo Judaeus (20 bc-50 ad) Phlegon (1st cent. ad) Pliny the Elder (23?-69 ad) Plutarch (c. 46-c. 119 ad) Pomponius Mela (40 ad) Quintilian (c. 35-c. 100 ad) Quintus Curtius Rufus (1st cent. ad) Seneca (4 bc?-65 ad) Silius Italicus (c. 25-101 ad) Statius Caelicius (1st cent. ad) Theon of Smyrna (c. 70-c.135 ad) Valerius Flaccus (1st cent. ad) Valerius Maximus (fl. c. 20 ad)1 Oddly enough, not one of these writers recorded any of the amazing and earth-shaking events reported in the gospels, even though this period was one of the best doc.u.mented in history and although some of these authors lived or traveled in the same small area in which the gospel story was set. Neither Jesus nor his disciples are mentioned by any of them-not a word about Christ, Christianity or Christians.
Concerning this peculiar deficiency of testimony, conservative Protestant writer Merrill Tenney remarks: One would naturally expect that the Lord Jesus Christ would be sufficiently important to receive ample notice in the literature of his time, and that extensive biographical material would be available. He was observed by mult.i.tudes of people, and his own followers numbered into the hundreds (1 Cor. 15:6), whose witness was still living in the middle of the first century. As a matter of fact, the amount of information concerning him is comparatively meager. Aside from the four Gospels, and a few scattered allusions in the epistles, contemporary history is almost silent concerning him.2 Concurring with this a.s.sessment, Catholic University New Testament professor, Catholic priest and monsignor Dr. John P. Meier, author of A Marginal Jew, states: ...there are very few sources for knowledge of the historical Jesus beyond the four canonical Gospels. Paul and Josephus offer little more than tidbits. Claims that later apocryphal Gospels and the Nag Hammadi material supply independent and reliable historical information about Jesus are largely fantasy. In the end, the historian is left with the difficult task of sifting through the Four Gospels for historical tradition.1 As we shall see, even the ”tidbits” do not provide much sustenance.
t.i.tus Flavius Josephus.
To reiterate, there is in reality no acknowledgement of Christ's existence in contemporary history, which is in fact entirely silent concerning him. What we do find, however, are very short but much touted pa.s.sages in the works of four writers of the late first to early second century, Josephus (37-c. 100 ad/ce), Tacitus (c. 107-116 ad/ce), Pliny (c. 111-113 ad/ce) and Suetonius (c. 110 ad/ce). As stated in the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, the value and/or authenticity of these pa.s.sages is disputed and questionable. For example, the pa.s.sage in the works of Jewish historian Josephus called the ”Testimonium Flavianum,” which has been deemed by many the most valuable of this trifling collection of ”proofs,” has been a.s.sailed for centuries as a forgery in part or in toto, with a number of able critics putting forth an extensive case against its authenticity. Appearing in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews (XVIII, III, 3), the Testimonium or ”TF” goes as follows: Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,-a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the princ.i.p.al men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.2 Although at one point it was universally rejected by scholars as a forgery, in recent times there has been a clamor to establish the Josephus pa.s.sage as genuine either wholly or partially, with Christian interpolations, as indicated by the italics. Reflecting the general impression of the earlier time regarding the TF, respected Jewish scholar Solomon Zeitlin remarked in 1969: Ever since Scalinger in the sixteenth century, the genuineness of the Christ pa.s.sage in Josephus has been questioned. Friedlander, in following Niese, whom he regarded as the greatest authority on Josephus, considered this pa.s.sage to be spurious. I fully share his opinion.1 Zeitlin continues by citing his published article, ”The Christ Pa.s.sage in Josephus,” in which he sets out to prove that the TF was interpolated by Church historian Eusebius during the fourth century, when it first appears in the literary record.
Concerning the TF, Dr. Crossan comments, ”It is either a total or partial interpolation by the Christian editors who preserved Josephus' works.”2 In evaluating this situation, it needs to be kept in mind that tampering and forgery were widespread in the ancient world, including in both non-Christian and Christian texts, as we have seen in the discussion regarding the ma.s.sive amounts of variant readings in the copies of the New Testament, as well as the abundant creation of pseudepigraphical literature.
The arguments against the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum include that there is no mention of it before the time of Eusebius (c. 260-c. 339?). Indeed, no early Church father before then has taken the slightest notice of this very important testimony to the existence of the Lord and Savior, even though a number of them poured over the works of Josephus and other writers in order to find precisely such references to Christ, Christians or Christianity. Christian experts on Josephus such as Origen somehow missed this critical pa.s.sage, the Church father even complaining that the Jewish historian did not consider Jesus to be the Christ.3 Other arguments against the genuineness of the TF by a number of significant scholars, many of whom have been Christian, include, among several more: 1. It breaks the narrative preceding and succeeding it in an unnatural manner; 2. It is oddly brief in consideration of the numerous long pa.s.sages Josephus writes regarding a.s.sorted other characters, such as some 20 other Jesuses; and, 3. The blatantly Christian language is likewise not natural to Josephus, a pious Jew. As another clue as to the possibly fraudulent nature of at least part of the TF, the Greek word phylon-”tribe”-in the TF const.i.tutes a unique usage by Josephus, as he ordinarily utilizes it only to describe a nation, people or ethnicity, but never a religious group. Eusebius, however, does use the term phylon in this manner to describe Christians.
These contentions are hotly debated, of course, but even fervent Christian apologists such as Josh McDowell do not agitate for the TF's authenticity in toto, accepting instead the ”partial interpolation theory,” which a.s.serts that the most
Christian-sounding phrases were inserted into an existing pa.s.sage genuine to Josephus..
One argument for the authenticity of the Testimonium as a whole contends that, since it is present in all existing copies of Josephus's Antiquities, it must have been in the original. This a.s.sertion sounds good, until it is realized that there are no extant Greek copies of the Antiquities that predate the 9th to 11th century (depending on the source), that all of these copies were made by Christians, and that all of them evidently were based on a single text. Regarding this argument that all copies of Josephus contain the TF, Meier cautions, ”These facts must be balanced, however, by the sobering realization that we have only three Greek ma.n.u.scripts of Book 18 of The Antiquities, the earliest which dates from the 11th century.”1 Moreover, the text of the TF differs significantly in an Arabic copy of the Antiquities, while an ”old Russian” or Slavonic edition of the TF-which Meier calls a ”clearly unauthentic text”2-appears not in the Antiquities but in Josephus's Jewish War. These facts tend to cast suspicion on the authenticity of the TF as a whole.
Another argument for the authenticity of the TF hinges on the fact that it represents a ”neutral” or ”ambiguous” depiction, which would explain why it was ignored by all the Church fathers prior to Eusebius.3 In reality, the silence by the Church fathers regarding this pa.s.sage, particularly if it was neutral or even negative, ranks as highly uncharacteristic. One would, in fact, expect a heated polemic, a critical a.n.a.lysis, an attempt at padding out the TF, or a long treatise called ”Against Josephus” from the likes of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen and Tertullian, et al. Nevertheless, again, there remains nothing.
Our exploration of Luke's apparent usage of Josephus leads to another mystery regarding the TF: Relevant words from the TF-such as ”Iesous,” ”man” and ”deeds”-reveal a connection with only Luke and no other ancient text in the ma.s.sive database searched by Dr. Goldberg, who discovered these correspondences between the original Greek of the TF and a scripture in Luke's ”Emmaus pa.s.sage” (Lk 24:19). The connection is so strong that one is almost certainly copied from the other. It would be mindboggling to think that Luke would copy his data about Jesus from Josephus, a notion that would, of course, suggest that the TF in part may be original to Josephus. However, a more scientifically satisfying suggestion posits that the forger of the pertinent part of the TF used Luke-and that Luke postdated the Jewish historian. Goldberg concludes that both the authors of Luke and the TF used a common Christian source-text, as possibly one of the ”many” upon whose works the evangelist based his own material.
One argument against the TF being an interpolation contends that it closely mimics Josephus's style. However, again, the use of the term phylon is unprecedented in Josephus, as is the combination of the words ”Iesous,” ”man” and ”deeds,” which appear to have come from Luke's gospel. Moreover, a skilled forger would be able to ”digest” the style of his target (e.g., Josephus) in order to emulate him, and ”regurgitate” using whatever source material he chose to best suit his purposes (Luke, et al.) In creating a pa.s.sage out of whole cloth, there is no reason it could not be a piecemeal production from memory of a series of pa.s.sages. The TF is short enough that such a solution does not seem implausible at all, even if there appears, as Goldberg suggests, no precise precedent in the long chronicle of Christian interpolations. The obscurity of the Emmaus pa.s.sage only serves to make it more desirable to a forger, as such a fraud would be less likely detected. An accomplished counterfeiter knowing Josephus would surely attempt to emulate the style of not only the author but also the time. Arguing, as does Goldberg, that the TF more closely resembles an earlier phase in the Jewish-Christian depiction of the pa.s.sion one presumes that the story truly happened as portrayed and during the era represented.
Regarding Josephus and the Testimonium, F.F. Bruce, one of the founders of the modern evangelical Christian movement, concludes: ...a paragraph about Jesus...was evidently modified and interpolated at an early stage in the course of transmission to suit Christian tastes. It cannot therefore be adduced with confidence as evidence...1 The same determination of ”modification” and ”interpolation” has been made by those arguing against the authenticity of the phrase ”brother of Jesus, who was called Christ” in the ”James pa.s.sage” in Josephus's Antiquities (XX, IX, 1)-at least as applies to the phrase ”who was called Christ,” which unnaturally breaks the text and seems to be an interpolation. The evidence against this latter phrase being genuine also includes that, again, Church father Origen-who studied Josephus's works and used them to refute critics such as Celsus-specifically complained that the Jewish historian did not consider Jesus to be the Christ. This phrase ”who was called Christ” may have been copied from the gospel of Matthew (1:16), possibly long after Josephus's time. Furthermore, the James in this pa.s.sage has not been concretely identified with the James in the gospel story, as Josephus's James died some seven years prior to the death of the New Testament's ”James the Just.”
Despite the conclusions reached by Bruce and many others that Josephus ”cannot be adduced with confidence as evidence,” Meier insists that this debate about Josephus becomes critical to proving that Christ even existed. Hence, Christ's very existence hangs on the slender thread of the TF. Since this debate about Josephus has gone on long enough and will seemingly never end, let us for a moment a.s.sume that the Testimonium Flavianum is genuine, in whole or in part. Even with such an a.s.sumption, the TF still does not const.i.tute credible, scientific proof of the historicity of Jesus Christ, since it was not written by an eyewitness, nor is it based on any discernible doc.u.ments of any authority. The TF reflects only a tradition or rumor of something that purportedly occurred 60 to 70 years earlier and made little to no impact upon anyone significant outside of immediate Christian circles.
Pliny the Younger.
The writings of Roman authors Pliny, Suetonius and Tacitus held up as evidence of Christ's life are also very questionable in their value, as they are either ambiguous as to who or what they are describing, or-in the case of Tacitus especially-may likewise be forgeries in part or in whole, as they have been considered to be at various points in the past.
In a letter to the Emperor Trajan (c. 100 ad/ce), Pliny, who was governor of Bithynia at the time, asks for a.s.sistance in dealing with ”Christiani” brought before him in his court, complaining that these Christiani sing hymns or chant verses ”in honor of Christ as if to a G.o.d.” If Pliny's letter is genuine, it would serve only to demonstrate that there were people termed ”Christians” who were singing hymns to a G.o.d with the t.i.tle of ”Christos” around the beginning of the second century. Neither Pliny's letter nor the response by Trajan mention anything about this G.o.d having a life on Earth; nor do they ever call him ”Jesus.” In reality, the epithet ”Christos”--is used 40 times in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, centuries before the Christian era, as applied to a variety of characters, including in several references to ”the Lord's anointed.”1 Indeed, in 1 and 2 Samuel the first king of Israel, Saul, is repeatedly referred to as ”Christos”-Christ-at least a couple of hundred years before Jesus was given the same t.i.tle. By the end of 2 Samuel (23:1), it is David who is called ”Christ.” In 2 Chronicles 6:42, David's son Solomon becomes G.o.d's Christ, and at 2 Chronicles 22:7 it is Jehu who is the Lord's anointed. As can be seen, there have been many Christs-all leaving behind their own fingerprints.
From the foregoing facts, it can be a.s.serted that Pliny provides no useful information either as to who Jesus was or even whether or not he existed. Like the missives of Pliny and Trajan, the letter or ”rescript” of Emperor Hadrian to Minucius Funda.n.u.s, said by Eusebius to have been attached to Justin Martyr's First Apology, also cited as evidence of Christ's life, is doubtful as to both its genuineness and its usefulness. Even if it were authentic, the letter likewise is too late to serve as evidence of anything but the existence of Christians in the empire by Hadrian's time (117-138 ad/ce).
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.
Other apologist ”proofs” of the history of the gospel story occur in a couple of brief pa.s.sages in the works of Roman historian and biographer Suetonius. In Suetonius's Life of Claudius (c. 113 ad/ce) appears the following pa.s.sage: Iudaeos impulsore Chresto a.s.sidue tumultuantis Roma expulit.
[Those] Jews impelled by Chrestos to a.s.siduously cause tumult, [Claudius] expelled out of Rome.
The germane term here is ”Chrestos,” a widely used epithet meaning ”good,” ”virtuous,” ”useful” or ”easy,” as at Matthew 11:30. Contrary to the claims of Christian apologists, however, Chrestos is not equivalent to, or interchangeable with, Christos or Christ, meaning ”anointed,” although Christian writers and scribes did confusedly utilize both epithets. Nevertheless, numerous individuals, including both G.o.ds and mortals, were called ”Chrestos” or ”Chrestus” during this era, so it is uncertain that this brief remark even concerns Jesus of Nazareth in the first place, especially since Jesus was never said to have been at Rome.
In his Life of Nero (c. 110 ad/ce), Suetonius also mentions ”Christians” as involved in a ”new and mischievous superst.i.tion” and being punished by Nero. It seems odd that a movement over 80 years old would be considered ”new,” particularly since both Peter and Paul were said to have proselytized at Rome. Indeed, the book of Acts claims Paul was such a known rabble-rouser that he was arrested and hauled before Roman authorities, even appealing to Caesar himself! (Acts 26:32) Paul not only purportedly spent two years in prison in Rome, but it was there where he allegedly later experienced martyrdom in the arena ”before a jeering crowd” during Nero's reign. Strangely, despite his noteworthy life Paul appears nowhere in the historical record. Moreover, this pa.s.sage in Suetonius may have been another Christian interpolation, breaking the narrative in an unnatural manner. In any event, these brief mentions of ”Chrestos” and ”Christians” do not provide credible scientific evidence of the historicity of the gospel story; nor do they add anything to our quest to find out who Jesus was.
Publius/Gaius Cornelius Tacitus.