Lord or Legend?--an interesting read

I just finished reading Lord Or Legend? Wrestling with the Jesus Dilemma, by Gregory Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy.

So...my thoughts?

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. It is aimed at the relatively recent theory that Jesus never existed as an historic person, but instead is a compilation of 1st century myths. I first encountered this idea in the past year after reading The Jesus Puzzle ,by Earl Doherty, and responded with a couple of posts about it before abandoning my attempt in the face of daily life; something that happens frequently to me.

Right before Christmas I got into a conversation with Lifewish that meandered its way through about a million different ideas, some of which came to bear on the general reliability of the Gospels and the Bible as a whole. I had asked for this book by that time and was happy to receive it and reexamine some of the things that I had suspended because of a busy schedule.

I enjoyed the book and thought it did a fairly good job in addressing some of the more pertinent issues about the legendary Jesus theory. Very frequently, I wanted more detail than what was offered. There are copious amounts of end notes, which are great if you want to research some of the book's claims yourself. I might be interested in tracking down the more academic version of the book later. Boyd and Eddy had a more general purpose for this version. To quote from the book's intro:

...we have written this book for the interested layperson and have thus attempted to keep it as brief and as readable as possible without overly compromising the quality of the scholarship. If some readers desire to explore certain issues raised here in a more thorough manner, we encourage them to consult our more academic (and much longer!) co-authored book, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition.

I'll have to check the library, or Amazon for that.

Some of the arguments Boyd and Eddy make are more convincing than others, and some would be flatly rejected by true skeptics, but the overall scope of the book would definitely be an encouragement to believers who are questioning the basic historicity of the Gospels. It does require some familiarity with New Testament issues and scholars, so it might not be the perfect read for someone who is just dipping their toe in the waters of scholarly criticism. It would be a 201 level course, instead of a more introductory 101 level.

I hope to write about a few of the more interesting points the authors make over the next few weeks.....she says knowing she may never be able to get to it!

Refuting "The Jesus Puzzle"--Part Two

Part1 is here. Intro is here. This is a work in progress. I will add more to these articles as I have the time.

Throughout Doherty's article, The Jesus Puzzle, he consistently quotes the Pauline Epistles as his source text and the departure point for all his observations regarding a historical Jesus and the development of Christianity from within the New Testament. Within the article itself, he does not seem to question Paul or his writings. That is not the same as saying that he believes them, as far as their theological content, but that he seems willing to accept them as generally intact, historical letters, from a person named Paul, to various churches in the region. Doherty gleans them for supposed meaning and uses them as a measurement for the dichotomy between the physical, human person of Jesus, and the spiritual, divine aspect of Jesus. In his mind the two are vastly different, and Paul's reliance on the Supernatural Jesus is evidence that the historical Jesus never existed.

This reliance on Paul, but the rejection of the gospels and Acts, presents a problem for Doherty's ideas. If he accepts Paul's writings as authentic and trustworthy in most cases--though he always tends to discount sections which most obviously disprove his points--then he has an intellectual dilemma. How do you rely on an author's texts, yet refuse to believe anything historical that he actually says?

For instance, Doherty writes in Piece No. 3 :

How do Paul and other apostles like himself know of their Son and Redeemer? Is
it through the words and deeds of Jesus on earth? Through traditions about him
going back to those who had witnessed his ministry? No, Paul has learned of the
Son through revelation and scripture. "God chose to reveal his Son through me,"
he says in Galatians 1:16.

Doherty's contention is that Paul never learned anything about Jesus from actual eyewitnesses, or through earthly knowledge. He takes Galatians 1:16 out of context, portraying it as an admission from Paul that all his knowledge of Jesus came from a vision and nothing else. Acts recounts the story of Saul/Paul on the Damascus road, but Doherty has removed that avenue of explanation. Further into his paper he claims:

Acts, too, as an historical witness to Jesus or the beginnings of the
Christian movement, cannot be relied upon. The more recent tendency is to see
Acts as a second century product, probably of Roman provenance, highly
tendentious and written for the purpose of creating a picture of Christian
origins traceable to a unified body of apostles in Jerusalem who were followers
of an historical Jesus. Much of it is sheer fabrication, and highly incompatible
with information found in the letters of Paul.[emphasis mine]

So, we have the reason that he rejects Acts; it doesn't line up with Paul's epistles, in his opinion.

Let's take a look at that claim. Acts relates Paul's life and ministry highlights. It presents Saul/Paul as a persecutor of Christians, even being present during Stephen's stoning

Acts 7:58b
Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Acts 8:1 and 3
And Saul was there, giving approval to his death.......

But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house he dragged off men and women and put them in prison

Paul writes in his epistles:

1 Corinthians 15:9
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Galatians 1:13
For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

He is portrayed as seeing a vision of Jesus, being converted on the road to Damascus, and spending some time there after his conversion teaching that Jesus was the Son of God.(Acts 9:1-30)

Paul relates the same timeline for events in Galatians 1:14-2:10, detailing his interactions with Peter specifically.

Once we begin to see that there is quite a correlation between Acts and Paul's epistles, even if Doherty still views it as a "sheer fabrication," he still must explain what he thinks of Paul. Paul tells us he knew Peter and other apostles. Paul tells us that he was excelling in Judaism, which means he would have been very aware of any controversy within the religion and any events related to it. He might not have believed in Jesus, but he had surely heard about him in his studying and time in Jerusalem. Paul also reiterates throughout his epistles that he is not making up his story, but that it is true and factual

The ultimate question for Doherty is what he believes about Paul.

In order to throw out Acts and the Gospels on Paul's supposed "silence," he would have to cast Paul in the role of manipulative liar. If Paul is a manipulative liar, then you could hardly look to his works as proof that there was no historical Jesus. Instead, throwing out Paul's epistles would eliminate the so-called "problem of silence" that Doherty thinks is so damning to the historical Jesus.

So, which is it? Are Paul's letters authentic and trustworthy? If they are, then how does Doherty reconcile the historical facts within them and Paul's claims of knowing the original apostles of Jesus--eyewitnesses to Jesus' earthly life? Was Paul duped? That hardly seems believable for someone who was so heavily invested in persecuting the church before his conversion. It also seems highly unlikely that Paul would abandon all his striving in Judaism for a legend he heard passed along by, what would have to be, liars and con men if Jesus never existed.

It's late and I'm tired again. I will edit this tomorrow with a little more fleshing out of the Acts/Paul correlation. Feel free to leave a comment if you have something to add! :)

Refuting "The Jesus Puzzle"--Part One

Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle is an attempt to disprove the existence of an historical Jesus. This, of course, presents a serious problem for Christians. If there is no actual human Jesus, the entire thing falls apart. Christianity, at its core, relies upon the facts of Jesus of Nazareth's existence and the belief that he lived, was crucified and was physically resurrected. If there is no
Jesus, there is no Christianity.

Doherty divides his puzzle into twelve pieces and then delves further into his argument after presenting his puzzle pieces. I will respond to his article in several parts in order to break up the posts and deal with things in more detail.

The first pillar of Doherty's argument is built on removing the gospels and the book of Acts as reference material. He does this, not by specifically disproving them, but through a round-about attempt to eliminate them on the basis that the non-gospel writers of the New Testament(Paul, Peter, James) are silent on the specific details of Jesus earthly life.

He writes:

In the first half century of Christian correspondence, including letters attributed to Paul and other epistles under names like Peter, James and
John, the Gospel story cannot be found. [emphasis mine] When these writers speak of their divine Christ, echoes of Jesus of Nazareth are virtually inaudible, including details of a life and ministry, the circumstances of his death, the attribution of any teachings to him.

and later

The one clear placement of Christ in recent times, the accusation in
1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 that Jews in Judea had killed the Lord Jesus, has been
rejected as an interpolation by most of today’s liberal scholars,1 while the one Gospel
episode Paul seems to allude to, Jesus’ words over the bread and wine at what he
calls "the Lord’s Supper" in 1 Corinthians 11:23f, can be interpreted as a
mythical scene Paul has himself developed through perceived revelation.
Otherwise, no non-Gospel writer of the first century makes any statement which
would link the divine spiritual Son and Christ they all worship and look to for
salvation, with a man who had recently walked the sands of Palestine, taught and prophecied and performed miracles, a man executed by Pontius Pilate on Good Friday outside Jerusalem, to rise from a nearby tomb on Easter Sunday morning. This "conspiracy of silence" is as pervasive as it is astonishing.

The silence is hardly deafening. References to Jesus abound that refer to his humanity, and occasionally appeal to eyewitness testimony.

2Peter 1:16-18

We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying,"This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well-pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were on the sacred mountain. [emphasis mine]

1 Peter 2:23-24

When they hurled their insults at him he did not retaliate; when he suffered he made
no threats. Instead he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. [emphasis mine]

1 Peter 5:1(a)

To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings....

Peter mentions his eyewitness testimony about Jesus and we are to believe that this doesn't refer to an historical Jesus? Doherty quotes no refutation of the epistles of Peter on this account.

Paul refers to Pontius Pilate and The Lord's Supper, but then Doherty conveniently
declares that these are later interpolations and intrusions into the text, that were not there originally. Why? Well, because according to Doherty, the gospels are false, so if the epistles reference them, then they must have been tampered with--a nice bit of circular reasoning attested to by liberal scholars. (his own description of said scholars)

The "silence" that seems to fuel Doherty's argument on this point is very easily explained if one considers the purpose of the epistles in the New Testament. They functioned, not as a first communication to people who had never heard about Jesus, but as letters to already established communities of believers. The audience for the epistles had already heard and received the gospel story of Jesus, so why would Paul, or any other writer, devote time to retell the story? Many of the recipients had been visited by Paul previously, receiving his missionary preaching about Jesus.

We see in 1 Corinthians that Paul had previously visited them and preached while he was there. Referring to his previous visit, he writes:

1 Corinthians 2:1-2
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And in Galatians 1 :8, concerning a previous visit to Galatia, he writes:
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!

And in verse 11 of the same chapter:
I want you to know brothers that the gospel I preached is not something I made up.

It goes on and on throughout Paul's writings that he has either personally visited the locations before these letters were written, or the churches which he has not visited are already flourishing Christian communities. When he had visited them, it had been for the express purpose of evangelizing them for the first time. It would have been during those times that he would have related the historical details about Jesus, not years later as he is writing to correct errors that have popped up, or provide clarification about specific issues.

Doherty asserts that the non-Christian record of the time makes no mention of Jesus. That assertion is debatable and not accepted by the majority of biblical scholars. He goes on to list non-Christian sources, but then refutes them once again by declaring that they were all corrupted by Christians and cannot be trusted, Jospehus being the most important example.

Josephus’ famous passage in Antiquities 18 is acknowledged to be, as it stands, a Christian interpolation, and arguments that an original reference
to Jesus either stood there or can be distilled from the present one,
founder on the universal silence about such a reference on the part of
Christian commentators until the 4th century.2 As for the reference
in Antiquities 20 to James as "brother of Jesus, the one called (the)
Christ", this passage also bears the marks of Christian interference.3

Christopher Price offers another perspective on Josephus, claiming that the majority of scholars agree that there exists at least partial authenticity in the Josephus references. Price writes:

Notably, the consensus for partial authenticity is held by scholars from
diverse perspectives. Liberal commentators such as Robert Funk, J. Dominic Crossan, and A.N. Wilson, accept a substantial part of the TF as originally Josephan. So do Jewish scholars, such as Geza Vermes, Louis H. Feldman, and Paul Winter
and secular scholars such as E.P. Sanders and Paula Fredrikson. Even Jeff Lowder, co-founder of the Secular Web, recognizes the merits of the partial authenticity.

Scholars go back and forth on the small tidbits of non-biblical mentions of Jesus. It is hard to sort out an honest appraisal because many of the scholars come with agendas guiding their conclusions.

I'm tired! I'll write more later.

Refuting The Jesus Puzzle--Introduction

While perusing Science Daily's articles about science, it was hard to ignore a very prominent ad with a mosaic picture of Jesus, a large question mark looming over him. Clicking the link led me to a site promoting a movie called, The God Who Wasn't There, a documentary by Brian Flemming. The title pretty much sums up what the movie is about--proving that Jesus never actually existed. Intrigued, I waded through the site and eventually, through a few google searches found this page, by Earl Doherty, who is referenced on the website for the movie.


Reading The Jesus Puzzle just inflamed my outrage, not because Doherty is an atheist, or even that he is trying to persuade others to throw off religious belief, but because many of his statements are lacking logic, circular in nature, and just plain ludicrous. It would be easy to see how someone who never actually read the Bible could be swayed by his arguments, but those who have read it can see glaring discrepancies and misrepresentations very easily.

I have much to say about it, but want to write a detailed response, something that is difficult during the day when my kids are hootin' and hollerin' in the background. I'll be presenting it in several parts. Hopefully, I'll have the first part out tonight.